KIM Jong-un’s younger sister has cemented her position in his inner circle after she made a public appearance next to top North Korean officials at a Worker’s Party congress, it has been reported.
Kim Yo-jong was pictured in the front row of an all-male lineup of senior party officials, clapping as her brother addressed the room.
She sat next to Choe Ryonghae, her brother’s right-hand man and party vice-chairman.
Kim Yo-jong was also sat near Kim Pyonghae and O Su-yong, the the cruel regime's Worker’s Party secretaries.
In a country known for its staged optics, the seating arrangement is believed to suggest that she has been promoted within the ranks of the hermit kingdom.
The news comes after Kim Yo-jong was promoted in October to North Korea’s politburo - the nation’s most powerful decision making body.
At the time, Michael Madden, a North Korea expert at Johns Hopkins University’s 38 North website, said: “It shows that her portfolio and writ is far more substantive than previously believed and it is a further consolidation by the Kim family’s power.”
Kim Yo-jong is responsible for developing her brother’s cult of personality, and according to defector Thay Yong-ho, organises all public events.
She was born on September 26, 1987, and is the second child of North Korea’s late leader Kim Jong-il and his mistress Ko Yong-hui.
By 2007 she had been named a junior cadre in the communist Workers’ Party of Korea.
After her father’s stroke in 2008, she became an active force in establishing Kim Jong-un’s succession campaign.
She was a regular member of her father’s entourage before his death in December 2011.
At his funeral she was seen leading a group of senior leaders and stood between two party elders at the ceremony.
When Kim Jong-un underwent medical treatment in October 2014, it is believed that Kim Yo-jong filled in as leader.
In January, the US Treasury blacklisted Kim Yo-jong along with other North Korean officials over “severe human rights abuses”.