Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong has usually been described because the second-most highly effective individual in North Korea.
Ms Kim holds two senior roles in her brother’s authorities and has gained worldwide consideration for insulting her South Korean counterpart and different international leaders.
She is usually seen by the supreme chief’s aspect at navy demonstrations and worldwide summits – and was noticed with him and Russian President Vladimir Putin forward of their bilateral assembly and China’s navy parade in Beijing.
Like her brother, a lot of her private life is shrouded in secrecy – however here’s what we find out about her.
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Fast rise to energy after father’s loss of life
Ms Kim is believed to be in her late 30s and is the one daughter of the 5 youngsters born to Kim Jong II – Kim Jong Un’s father and North Korea’s supreme chief from 1994 till his loss of life in 2011.
She made her first main public look at her father’s funeral, shortly asserting her affect in her brother’s regime after he took energy.
She was rumoured to have briefly changed him in 2014 throughout a month-long interval when he was not seen in public.
She has served as vice director of the ruling Korean Employees’ Occasion’s Propaganda and Agitation Division since 2014 and have become a member of the nation’s most senior decision-making physique, the State Affairs Fee, in 2021, in keeping with South Korea’s Unification Ministry.
Picture:
Together with her brother Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang in September 2018. Pic: AP
None of her different siblings have gained the identical political affect as her.
She was a part of North Korea’s delegation on the Winter Olympics in South Korea in 2018 and has acted as a particular envoy at conferences with Seoul officers.
She was added to the US sanctions checklist in 2017 because of North Korea’s human rights document.
Like Mr Kim, she is believed to have spent a few of her childhood in Bern, Switzerland, the place she attended faculty, earlier than returning dwelling to check at Kim II Sung College.
It has been reported that she is married and has two youngsters, though this has by no means been formally confirmed.
Picture:
Helping her brother signal an settlement in Singapore with Donald Trump in 2018. Pic: AP
What controversial feedback has she made?
Ms Kim has flung repeated insults at her counterparts over the border in South Korea.
In August 2022, she responded to its supply of financial help in trade for denuclearisation by telling former South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol to “shut his mouth”.
She additionally referred to as him “really simple and still childish”.
South Korea’s unification minister described her feedback as “disrespectful and indecent”.
Picture:
Kim Yo Jong giving a speech in Pyongyang in 2022. Pic: AP
That yr, she additionally accused Seoul of bringing coronavirus into North Korea by way of its marketing campaign of dropping rubbish-filled balloons and propaganda leaflets over the border.
“We have cleared out the virus spread by the South Korean scum,” she mentioned afterwards. “We must counter it toughly. We have already considered various counteraction plans but our countermeasure must be a deadly retaliatory one.”
In November 2022, she referred to Mr Yoon’s authorities as “idiots” amid hypothesis Seoul was planning provocation measures towards Pyongyang.
South Korea described her feedback as “very deplorable” and accused her of exhibiting “no basic form of etiquette”.
Throughout his time within the White Home, Ms Kim referred to then US president Joe Biden as an “old man with no future” after the US stepped up help of South Korea.
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Ms Kim on a TV display in Pyongyang in 2023. Pic: AP
Extra not too long ago, she has denied claims Pyongyang authorities have eliminated loudspeakers positioned by South Korean propaganda officers on the border.
She has additionally been essential of President Donald Trump for exhibiting what she describes as “its most hostile and confrontational will” to North Korea.
Since returning to energy in January, Mr Trump has expressed a want to restart talks with Mr Kim after two failed denuclearisation summits throughout his final time period in 2018 and 2019.
However Ms Kim has warned the US chief towards efforts in the direction of nuclear disarmament or help for the South, saying it makes a “mockery of the other party [North Korea]”.
