South Korea’s spy agency said it was analysing rare state media footage showing the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un with two children – saying they could be hers.
Key regime spokesman Kim Yo-jong was spotted with two youngsters – a boy and a girl – while attending North Korea’s New Year art performance.
She was seen holding the boy’s hand as the three walked together.
The isolated North has never officially disclosed any information about Yo-jong’s marital status or children, but Seoul’s spy agency said it was examining whether the children in the state media footage were hers.
“We are conducting a detailed analysis while keeping the possibility open,” it said in a statement yesterday.
The National Intelligence Service said they had previously detected that Yo-jong might have children, and the ones she was photographed with were in the correct age range.
Seoul’s Unification Ministry said that the art performance event in Pyongyang is understood to be one where participants are expected to accompany their family members.
State media footage also showed leader Kim with his teenage daughter, known as Ju-ae.
Seoul-based specialist site NK News said the release of the images might be part of a “propaganda effort to humanise regime officials”.
Yo-jong has long been among her brother’s closest lieutenants, and one of the most influential women in the isolated regime.
Born in 1988, according to the South Korean government, she is one of three children born to 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 rose rapidly up the ranks once he inherited power after their father’s death in 2011. — AFP
