Politics

Seoul believes girl shown by Kim Jong-un is his middle daughter

Seoul, Nov 22 (EFE).- South Korea’s intelligence service said the girl North Korean media showed last week with the country’s leader Kim Jong-un during the launch of a missile is his middle daughter, whose name is believed to be Kim Ju-ae, a parliamentarian said Tuesday.

National Intelligence Service officials provided information to members of the commission, one of whom, Yoo Sang-beom, of the ruling and conservative People’s Power Party said the girl is the second of the marriage between Kim Jong-un and first lady Ri Sol-ju.

North Korean media showed it for the first time Saturday in images of the test of an intercontinental ballistic missile carried out a day earlier, saying Kim supervised the launch “along with his beloved daughter and wife.”

The photos show a girl dressed in a white coat listening to her father as she gives instructions to officials, together with Kim watching the missile as it takes off or walking hand in hand with him next to the projectile’s launcher.

State television network KCTV broadcast additional images of the little girl Sunday with her father and mother during the launch.

North Korean media rarely publish information about the close relatives of the Kim dynasty, which has ruled the country since the 1940s, and the girl had not been an exception until now, since state propaganda had never mentioned her before.

South Korean intelligence experts said Kim would have had three children with Ri around 2010, 2013 and 2017.

Following one of his extravagant visits to North Korea to meet with Kim Jong-un, former American basketball player Dennis Rodman said publicly in 2013 that he held “his daughter Ju-ae,” a baby at the time.

Many analysts have said the girl who appears in the photographs, if it is Ju-ae, is very tall for a 10-year-old.

However, Yoo said Tuesday that “the (intelligence service) confirmed her belief that she is Ju-ae because the existing intelligence (about her) already indicated that she is a taller than average girl.”

The service allegedly believes the decision to show Kim’s daughter seeks to send the message that the nuclear and missile program looks to protect future generations of North Koreans. EFE

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