North Korea's Kim Jong Un Is Now Running the Country With His Younger Sister Beside Him

A woman thought to be the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been pictured on the front row of a ruling party conference, indicating she may be consolidating her own role in Pyongyang.

Photos in North Korean state media releases from a conference of party chairpeople, where Kim opened with a speech reiterating North Korea's supposed nuclear power status, showed the woman on the top table of officials. The notable change and speculation about her identity was noted by the South Korean government. Given the North Korean regime’s closed and impervious nature to outside observers, officials and media interested in Pyongyang’s affairs frequently scour such releases for signs of dynamism among the ruling elite.

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"A woman presumed to be Kim Yo Jong was found sitting on the elevated stand,” Lee Eugene, vice spokesperson at South Korea’s Unification Ministry, said at a press briefing, national news agency Yonhap reported. “As she is an alternate party member, the government will closely monitor her status and future movements,"

If the woman in question is Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader's younger sister, a seat so close to the leader could indicate an upgrade of her own standing in the party and in her brother’s favor. She is pictured sitting five places from the leader, which is something only a select few are permitted.

12_22_Kim_yo_jong Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, attends an opening ceremony of a newly constructed residential complex in Ryomyong street in Pyongyang, North Korea April 13, 2017. Damir Sagolj/File Photo/Reuters

She was only named in North Korean state media in 2014 but appeared on television behind Kim Jong Un during their father’s funeral in 2011. She was promoted to the ruling party’s politburo, the country's highest decision-making body, according to an announcement in October at the age of around 30—half the age her aunt was when she assumed a similar role before her husband’s execution in 2013, according to Duyeon Kim a visiting senior research fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum.

Kim Yo Jong received the promotion 17 months after becoming a member of the party's central committee at a party congress in May 2016.

Alongside the leader’s wife, Ri Sol Ju, Kim Yo Jong is one of the two most publicly visible women active within the regime and since 2014 she became vice-director of the party’s propaganda and agitation department, and reports by monitoring group 38 North suggest she was highly influential in creating a cult of personality around her brother in a similar vein to that of their grandfather.

She is one of her brother’s closest aides and went to boarding school with him in Bern, Switzerland, according to online database site North Korea Leaders Watch.

The North Korean leadership has been the subject of much scrutiny in recent weeks, after reports from Japanese media said that a prominent official, notably in charge of the country's most powerful nuclear test in September, had been executed. That followed reports of the disappearance of General Hwang Pyong So, a significant figure considered the second most powerful person after Kim himself, who South Korean media reported had been "purged" over financial crimes.

North Korea rarely confirms the executions or other punishments of top officials, and analysts in South Korea and the West rely on defectors and intelligence sources for insights into the secretive state.

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