South Korea’s intelligence agency said Friday it was analyzing rare state media footage showing the North Korean leader’s powerful sister. Kim Jong Un with two children – saying they could be his.
Key regime spokeswoman Kim Yo Jong was seen with two young people – a boy and a girl – while attending a New Year’s art performance in North Korea.
She was seen holding the boy’s hand as the three walked together.
The isolated North has never officially released any information about Kim Yo Jong’s marital status or children, but Seoul’s intelligence agency said it was examining whether the children in state media images were his own.
“We are conducting a detailed analysis while keeping the possibility open,” he said in a statement.
Jorge Silva / AP
The National Intelligence Service said it had already detected that Kim Yo Jong might have children and that those she was photographed with were in the correct age range.
Seoul’s Unification Ministry told AFP that the art performance in Pyongyang was supposed to be an event where participants were expected to accompany their family members, but said it was “unusual” to see Kim Yo Jong with children.
State media footage also showed leader Kim with his teenage daughter, known as Kim Ju Ae.
The Seoul-based specialist site NK News said the broadcast of the images could be part of a “propaganda effort aimed at humanizing regime officials.”
“It also follows a trend that began earlier in 2022 of showing elite officials from Kim Jong Un’s inner circle arriving at special events or providing disaster relief with their spouses and party members. their family,” we can read.
Kim Yo Jong has long been one of her brother’s closest lieutenants and one of the most influential women in this isolated regime.
Born in 1988, according to the South Korean government, she is one of three children of Kim’s father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il, and his third known partner, former dancer Ko Yong Hui.
She was educated in Switzerland alongside her brother and quickly rose through the ranks once he inherited power following their father’s death in 2011.
In April 2015, Seoul’s intelligence agency said Kim Yo Jong was expected to give birth the following month.
Later, in 2018, the South’s intelligence agency said it was understood that Kim was pregnant during his visit to South Korea in February of the same year for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
This summer, the National Intelligence Service told lawmakers that Kim Jong Un had gained weight and appeared to have obesity-related health problems, such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Kim, known for her heavy drinking and smoking, comes from a family with a history of heart problems. Kim’s father and grandfather, who ran North Korea before his inheritance of power in 2011, died of heart problems.
Kim’s health is the subject of much attention outside North Korea since he has not officially named a successor who would take charge of the country’s progress. nuclear arsenal targeting the United States and his allies if he were incapacitated.
The National Intelligence Service has estimated that Kim’s preteen daughter reinforces her likely status as her father’s heir apparent. However, the agency said it could not rule out the possibility that she would be replaced by one of her siblings, as she has not been officially named as her father’s successor.