North Korea's military appears to have taken the driver's seat in dealings with South Korea as it wields growing influence over the whole country, a news report said Thursday.

A representative from the powerful National Defence Commission (NDC) replaced one from the ruling communist party when the two Koreas held a secret contact in Beijing last month, Chosun Ilbo newspaper said.

Pak Chol, a brigadier-general and number two in the NDC's policy department, headed the North's delegation, it said. The NDC is the nation's most powerful state body and is chaired by leader Kim Jong-Il.

Seoul's unification ministry refused to comment on the report.

Early this month the NDC breached diplomatic norms and went public with news of the closed-door meeting as relations worsened. The North has declared it will no longer talk to the South's conservative government.

It said the South's delegation "begged" in vain in Beijing for summit talks and even tried to bribe the North's delegates.

The South admitted holding the Beijing meeting but said its neighbour was misrepresenting it and denied bribery. It said the key aim was to get the North to apologise for two deadly border incidents last year and promise no recurrence.

The South last year imposed trade sanctions after accusing the North of sinking one of its warships in March 2010 with the loss of 46 lives.

The North denies involvement in the sinking. But it shelled a South Korean border island last November and killed four people.

It says the shelling was provoked by its neighbour and refuses to apologise for either incident -- a precondition set by Seoul for major dialogue.

Baek Seung-Joo of the Korea Institute for Defence Analyses could not confirm Pak Chol attended the Beijing meeting.

But he said a turf war was underway between the North's military and the ruling party's United Front Department led by Kim Yang-Gon, a veteran in charge of inter-Korean affairs.

"The United Front Department feels embittered over the military poking its nose into inter-Korean dialogue," Baek told AFP.

"If the secret contacts had gone well, the NDC would have claimed credit for the success. This turf war was part of the reason why the NDC behaved so wildly, going public with the secret meeting."

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