Kim Jong Un’s sister rises in North Korea hierarchy
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful younger sister has been reinstated to an integral decision-making body, state media reported Sunday, marking her rise on the isolated nation.
Long among her brother’s closest advisers, Kim Yo Jong was reappointed another person in the Political Bureau of the Central Committee on a reshuffle of leading officials Saturday, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
The meeting to select the appointment was presided over by Kim Jong Un, it added.
Analysts say Kim Yo Jong is believed to have been removed from the position this past year following the collapse of a second summit between her brother and US President Donald Trump found in Hanoi.
“The restoration is part of Kim Yo Jong’s new rise within the North’s hierarchy,” Ahn Chan-il, a North Korean defector and researcher in Seoul, told AFP.
Kim Yo Jong acted as her brother’s envoy south at the time of the Pyeongchang Winter season Olympics in 2018, which ushered in a rapid diplomatic rapprochement on the divided peninsula.
She's frequently been pictured alongside him at summits with Trump or the South’s President Moon Jae-in.
But she only commenced issuing statements of direct political significance under her own brand last month, which analysts said highlights her central part in the North’s political rating.
It followed her appointment seeing as first vice-department director of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party - her main purpose in the totalitarian express.
Ri Child Gwon, who was simply named the North’s top diplomat in January, was also elected as an alternate person in the Political Bureau alongside Kim’s sister.
