Earlier today (June 12), U.S. President Donald Trump and Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un signed a joint agreement, committing North Korea to a "complete denuclearisation of Korean Peninsula".

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By now you would have realised that there was a woman who's been closely assisting the North Korean leader during this summit. Who's she, his wife, his secretary, or both?

Actually, she's the younger sister of Kim Jong-un, Kim Yo-Jong. And she's very powerful.

Vice Director, and close aide

Kim is Kim Jong-un's full sister, having been born out of the union between Kim Jong Il and his mistress, Ko Young Hee.

Like him, she also attended the Liebefeld-Steinhölzli public school in Bern, Switzerland under a pseudonym, before going back to Pyongyang.

She "disappeared" from the public spotlight for about a decade or so until her father's passing in 2011.

In that period of time, she was said to have been trained in the same way her aunt Kim Kyong Hui was, groomed to assist her brother who would become the next Supreme Leader.

Since then, she's become Vice Director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Workers' Party of Korea, and also a very close aide to the Supreme Leader as well, and thus one of the top officials of the country.

She also took up a monumental role in facilitating the summits between North and South Korea, inviting South Korean president Moon Jae-in to Pyongyang.

This happened during the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, where her meeting with Moon was the highest level of contact the two Koreas had in decades, after the Korean war that took place in 1950-53.

This paved way for the historic summit at the truce village of Panmunjom on April 27, 2018.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1000"] Via YouTube[/caption]

Of course, not all is rainbow and unicorns with Kim, as Kim is also blacklisted on the  U.S. Treasury Department for human right abuses and censorship.

While she and other North Korean officials on the list are unlikely to hold any property in the U.S., it serves as a symbolic gesture to pressure North Korea and to condemn the ruling party's actions and oppression on the people.

However, it seems that in the surprising developments that have since occurred, Kim and her brother may yet advance their charm offensive, and bring about real change - at least, to the relations between the two Koreas.

 

Top image adapted via screenshot from Channel NewsAsia's Facebook video