South Korea’s spy agency has informed lawmakers that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s recent presentation of his young daughter at public events is likely an attempt to demonstrate to his people that one of his children will one day inherit the leadership in what would be the third power transfer to a Kim family member in Pyongyang.
In recent months, Kim was seen escorting his daughter to three events: a tour of a missile storage facility, a photo session with North Korean weapons scientists, and a launch site for ballistic missiles.
The girl, who is believed to still be nine or ten years old, was described as Kim’s “most beloved child” by the state news media of North Korea, which sparked speculation from the outside about whether she is being groomed as his heir apparent.
Yoo Sang-bum, one of the legislators who attended the private NIS briefing, told reporters that South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it believed that Kim wants to show North Koreans his resolve to hold another round of hereditary power transitions within his family by taking his daughter to public places on Thursday.
While holding hands with his daughter, Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, steps away from an intercontinental ballistic missile. They appear to be conversing as he looks down at her and she looks up at him. She is dressed in black pants and what appears to be a white puffer jacket.
You went on to say that despite Ju Ae’s public appearance with her father, the first for any of Kim’s children, the NIS did not necessarily mean that she would succeed Kim.
According to reports from South Korean media, Kim has three children, the first of whom is a son and the third is a daughter. The children were born in 2010, 2013, and 2017.
Following the daughter’s initial appearance in November, the NIS informed legislators that she is approximately 10 years old and is Kim’s second child, Ju Ae.
At the time, the agency stated that Kim’s commitment to safeguarding North Korea’s future generations’ safety in the event of a conflict with the United States appeared to be reflected in her unveiling at the missile launch site.
On Sunday, Kim Jong Un, 39, will become the third generation of his family to lead North Korea, which was established in 1948. When his father Kim Jong Il passed away in December 2011, he took over as leader. When his father, the founder of the Korean state Kim Il Sung, died in 1994, Kim Jong Il took over.
Kim Jong Nam, Kim Jong Il’s eldest son, Kim Jong Un’s half-brother, was once regarded as a potential successor to the country’s dynastic leadership until he publicly fell from grace in 2001 when he was discovered trying to enter Japan with a fake passport to visit Tokyo Disneyland.
While his daughter, who is wearing a black coat and is standing to his right with her hand on his shoulder, is sitting and focusing on the camera, Kim Jong Nam was killed in a Malaysian airport in 2017 after two Asian women smeared the lethal nerve agent VX on his face. Behind them, there are a number of rows of men wearing military uniforms who are clapping with their hands quite high up, some of which are even above their heads. The attack was attributed to the government of Kim Jong Un, according to the South Korean secret service.’
Another legislator who was present at the meeting, Youn Kun-young, said that the NIS also said that former North Korean foreign minister Ri Yong-ho, who was involved in now-dormant nuclear diplomacy with the US, has been purged.
This would be North Korea’s most public purge in recent memory, if true.
In an apparent effort to consolidate his power during his earlier reign, Kim Jong Un orchestrated a string of executions, purges, and dismissals of senior officials, including the murder of his influential uncle.
The NIS, according to Youn, has not determined whether Ri Yong-ho was killed.
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Ri’s purge was not explained by the spy agency.
Ri, a career diplomat, attended the US-North Korea nuclear summit in 2018 and 2019 to discuss how to exchange North Korea’s steps toward denuclearization for economic and other benefits.
This week, the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported that Ri’s death is thought to have occurred in 2022. According to unidentified sources familiar with North Korea’s internal affairs, the paper has information that four to five additional individuals connected to the North Korean foreign ministry were also executed.
It stated that no one knew why the people were killed.
SOURCE: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS