Seoul:
Seoul's Unification Ministry on Monday added its voice to growing speculation surrounding Kim Jong Un's succession plans, saying they do not “rule out” that his daughter could be next to lead North Korea.
State media in Pyongyang on Saturday called Kim's teenage daughter a “great person of leadership” – “hyangdo” in Korean – a term usually reserved for top leaders and their successors.
Analysts said it was the first time Kim's daughter – never named by Pyongyang but identified as Ju Ae by South Korean intelligence – had been described as such by the North.
It has doubled speculation that the teenager, who often appears alongside her father at major public events, could have been chosen as the next leader of the nuclear-armed North, for a third hereditary succession.
“Usually, the term 'hyangdo' is only used to refer to the highest-ranking official,” Koo Byoung-sam, a spokesman for the Ministry of Unification in Seoul, said at a briefing on Monday.
“We do not rule out the possibility of Ju Ae's succession,” he said, adding that Seoul was “monitoring the situation and remained open to possibilities.”
However, he warned that if Ju Ae were to take her father's place as the fourth leader of the reclusive state, “the North Korean people will bear the brunt of the consequences,” he said.
Ju Ae was first introduced to the world by state media in 2022, when she accompanied her father to the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Since then, the North's official media have referred to her in various ways, including the “morning star of Korea” and “beloved child.”
She has been seen on many of her father's official assignments, including military exercises, a visit to a weapons factory and a stop at a new chicken farm.
In an image released by Pyongyang on Saturday, Ju Ae was seen using binoculars to observe recent paratroop training exercises, alongside her father and senior military officials.
Before 2022, the only confirmation of her existence came from former NBA star Dennis Rodman, who visited the North in 2013 and claimed to have met a baby daughter of Kim's named Ju Ae.
Seoul had initially indicated that Kim and his wife Ri had their first child, a boy, in 2010 and that Ju Ae was their second child.
But last year, Seoul's unification minister said the government “could not confirm with certainty” the existence of Kim's son.
Kim Jong Un inherited the regime after his father's death in late 2011 and has overseen four nuclear tests under his watch, the last of which was carried out in 2017.
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