Kim Jong-un’s sister resumes rise through the ranks

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s powerful younger sister Kim Yo-jong has been reinstated to a key decision-making body.

Kim Jong-un during a mortar drill inspection. Picture: KCNA via AFP

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s powerful younger sister has been reinstated to a key decision-making body, state media ­reported on Sunday, marking her rise in the isolated nation.

Long one of her brother’s closest advisers, Kim Yo-jong was reappointed an alternate member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee in a reshuffle of top ­officials on Saturday, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

The meeting to decide on the appointment was presided over by Kim Jong-un, it added.

Yo-jong is believed to have been removed from the position last year after the collapse of a second summit between her brother and US President Donald Trump in Hanoi. “The restoration is part of Kim Yo-jong’s recent rise within the North’s hierarchy,” said Ahn Chan-il, a North Korean ­defector and researcher in Seoul. Yo-jong acted as her brother’s envoy to the South during the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in 2018, which ushered in a rapid diplomatic rapprochement on the divided peninsula.

Kim Yo-jong at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi in March last year. Picture: AFP

She has frequently been pictured with him at summits with Mr Trump or the South’s President Moon Jae-in.

But she only began issuing statements of direct political significance under her own name last month, which highlights her central role in the North’s political ranking. It followed her appointment as first vice-department ­director of the central committee of the ruling Workers’ Party — her main role in the totalitarian state.

The domestic power play came as the North called for stronger measures against the coronavirus pandemic at a meeting presided by Jong-un, KCNA reported on Sunday, without acknowledging whether the country had reported any infections.

Officials in Pyongyang and its state media have repeatedly insisted the North remains totally free of the virus, but Sunday’s ­report did not make that assertion.

The World Health Organisation said 709 people — 11 of them foreigners — had been tested for the virus as of April 2, while more than 24,800 people have been ­released from quarantine.

AFP