North Korea’s Kim positioning daughter as successor, Seoul spy agency briefing says
by Jack Kim and Joyce Lee
SEOUL, Feb 12 (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is taking steps to solidify his position as his daughter’s successor and there are signs she is providing input on policy issues, South Korean lawmakers said on Thursday, citing a spy agency briefing.
Lawmakers said South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) will closely monitor how the girl, believed to be named Kim Ju Ae, is presented, including whether she will attend an upcoming meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party and whether she receives any official titles.
Lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun told reporters after the NIS’s closed-door briefing: “In the past, the NIS had described Kim Ju Ae as ‘running as successor,’ but the wording used today was that she is ‘in the process of being appointed internally as successor.'”
Ju Ae, believed to be in her teens, has become increasingly prominent in North Korean state media as accompanying her father on field guidance, including inspections of weapons projects, amid analysts’ speculation that she is being groomed to be the country’s fourth-generation leader.
Lee and another lawmaker, Park Sun-won, said they believed the NIS’s role during public events showed he had begun providing policy input and was effectively treated as the second-highest leader.
North Korea announced that the Workers’ Party would hold the opening meeting of the ninth Congress in late February; This meeting, analysts believe, will announce important policy goals on the economy, foreign relations and defense in the coming years.
Leader Kim Jong Un is likely directing the development of a large submarine capable of carrying up to 10 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and could be designed to be powered by a nuclear reactor, given the ship’s 8,700-ton displacement, Park and Lee said.
But it remains unclear whether it will be nuclear-powered or operationally functional as designed, lawmakers said, citing the spy agency’s analysis.
(Reporting by Jack Kim, Editing by Ed Davies)
