Kim Jong Un’s daughter referred to by term reserved for senior leaders

SEOUL North Korean state media on March 16 referred to leader Kim Jong Un’s teenage daughter as a great person of guidance”, employing a term usually reserved for senior leaders and hinting at her status as a potential successor, analysts said.

Both the Englishand Koreanlanguage versions of an official Korean Central News Agency report on Mr Kim and his daughter’s visit to a greenhouse farm used the plural form of the honorific, suggesting it applied to both of them.

“The great persons of guidance, together with cadres of the Party, the government and the military, went round the farm,’ read the English-language report, referring to the ruling Workers’ Party. The report ran images of the pair.

Analysts said it was the first time Mr Kim’s daughter never named by Pyongyang’s state media, but identified as Ju Ae by South Korean intelligence had been described as such by the North.