via KCNA/REUTERS
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his daughter Kim Ju visit a greenhouse in Gangdong, North Korea, in this photo released by the Korean Central News Agency on March 16, 2024. KCNA by REUTERS Attention Editor – This image was provided by a third party. REUTERS was unable to independently verify this image. No third party sales. Out of South Korea. No commercial or editorial sales in South Korea.
Korea – Will he be the fourth Kim to lead the country? Expression “Great Counselor” Speculation about the future of one of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s daughters was in any case used by local media on Saturday, March 16. You have to read the KCNA news agency report on the farm visit by the leader and the teenager in detail to understand.
“Along with great guides, party, government and army functionaries, visited the farm”We can read the English and Korean version of the press release that accompanies the photo.
While the plural form of this honorific expression, usually reserved for senior leaders, is used, leading regime analysts say it applies to Kim Jong-un and his daughter. To the same observers, this reinforces the hypothesis that she will succeed her father.
A very strong “level of personal worship”
“This is the first time that Kim Joo has been elevated to the rank of leader.”Reports for AFP Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
A word from North Korea “Hyangdo”Which means guide, is usually reserved for “Senior Leaders or Successors” Cheong Seong-chang, director of the Korean Peninsula Strategy Center at the Sejong Institute, says of the regime. “This level of personal adoration for Kim Ju A strongly suggests that he will succeed Kim Jong Un as the next leader of North Korea”.He adds.
Until now, the leader’s daughter had never been described as such by Pyongyang. She has never been identified by state media but South Korea’s intelligence agency believes she is Ju Ae, her second child with Ri Sol Ju, whom she married in 2009. Together they had three children, born between 2010 and 2017. Ju is 11 years old today.
When Dennis Rodman made Ju’s existence official
His daughter’s existence was first revealed by Pyongyang’s state media in 2022, when she accompanied her father on an intercontinental ballistic missile test firing. The only confirmation of its existence until then came from former American NBA star Dennis Rodman, who claimed to have met the leader’s daughter, Ju Ae, during a visit to North Korea in 2013.
Since then, she has participated in many official events including military exercises, visits to weapons factories, chicken farms and military parades. In a photo posted on Saturday, she is seen taking part in a recent paratrooper exercise alongside her father.
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