Kim Yo Jong named `deputy director of party’s committee

The official job title of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s younger sister has been confirmed on Thursday to be deputy director of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party, a post equivalent to vice minister.

Reporting Kim Jong Un visit’s to the April 26 Cartoon Film Studio on the day, the North’s Korean Central News Agency named Kim Yo Jong, who was accompanying the North Korean leader, "deputy director of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party." It is the first time that a North Korean media outlet has revealed Kim Yo Jong’s job rank. The North has effectively made it official that Kim Yo Jong is filling the vacancy of Kim Kyong Hee, a "female Baekdu Blood" who served as advisor to her nephew Kim Jong Un after helping her elder brother Kim Jong Il. Kim Kyong Hee is reportedly living in isolation at a certain place in Pyongyang after the purging of her husband Jang Song Thaek late last year. Kim Kyong Hee’s health is reportedly in serious condition, and some even suggested "rumors of her death.”

Kim Yo Jong’s affiliation has not be published, but given that officials who accompanied her on the day were senior officials from the propaganda and instigation department of the Workers’ Party, some experts speculate that she may belong to the same department. Kim Yo Jong could be taking the post of vice head of the organization and guidance department since figures who accompanied her at the election of representatives for the Supreme People’s Assembly in March this year were all figures in charge of organizational affairs.

Kim Yo Jong is the only figure who can have informal chat with Kim Jong Un right in front of him. Some claim that with cheerful character, she is deeply involved in policy on Japanese abductees in North Korea. Choi Seong-yong, who heads the Abductees` Family Union based in Seoul, said, “Kim Yo Jong is the figure who coordinated behind scene a meeting in Mongolia between Kim Eun Kyong, the daughter of Megumi Yokota, a Japanese woman who had been abducted to the North, and her Japanese grandparents early this year, and is deeply involved in related policy.”