The younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was shown in the North Korean media wearing a ring on her left ring-finger on Friday, prompting speculation that she may have recently married.
Kim’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, believed to be in her late 20s, wore what appeared to be a gold ring in a photograph published by the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, on Friday. In the photograph, she was accompanying her brother on a visit to a nursery in Pyongyang, the North’s capital.
Shortly after the photograph appeared, South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted anonymous North Korean sources in China as saying that Kim Yo-jong had married a son of Choe Ryong-hae, one of Kim Jong-un’s closest aides, last year. South Korean officials could not immediately confirm the report.
Kim Yo-jong has emerged as an important party official since her bother took power after their father’s death in 2011. In November, state-run media revealed that she was a deputy departmental director in the party. She is the only other member of Kim Jong-un’s reclusive family whose official title in his government has been disclosed.
Any influence that Choe exercises in Kim Jong-un’s inner circles stems largely from his family background, South Korean analysts said. Choe’s father was a loyal comrade of Kim Jong-un’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, when the senior Kim led a band of Korean guerrillas who fought against Japanese colonialists in Manchuria in the 1930s and 1940s. Kim Il-sung later founded the North Korean state.
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