Seoul: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s teenage daughter Ju-ae has paid tribute at the family mausoleum for the first time, accompanied by her father, the North’s state media images showed on Friday.
Her first known attendance at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, where the North Korean leader’s late father and grandfather lie in state, came amid growing speculation about her presence in the North Korean communist dynasty’s potential succession.
Kim, his wife and Ju-ae, as well as key party and government officials, visited the family mausoleum on New Year’s Day.
While the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) did not mention that Ju-ae visited the family mausoleum, state media photos showed the Kim family standing in the front row. Ju-ae was spotted in the centre, with her parents standing on each side.
It marked the first known visit to the family mausoleum by Ju-ae, who first appeared in North Korean state media in 2022.
“All the visitors made a firm pledge to fulfill their responsibility and duty in the vanguard of accomplishing the sacred cause for the eternal prosperity and development of the great DPRK and the promotion of the people’s well-being, true to the ideas and leadership of Kim Jong Un with single-minded loyalty,” the KCNA reported, using the acronym of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The mausoleum enshrines the embalmed bodies of the North’s founder Kim Il-sung, grandfather of Kim, and Kim Jong-il, a former North Korean leader and Kim’s father.
Kim Jong-un last visited the family mausoleum on the occasion of New Year’s Day in 2023. He paid respects to his father and grandfather on the first day of each year since taking power in 2012 but skipped such visits in 2018, 2024 and 2025, Yonhap news agency reported.
When asked about the significance of the visit, Seoul’s unification ministry confirmed that it marked Kim’s first visit to the family mausoleum with his daughter that was made public.
“We are closely watching as it is the first such visit,” Chang Yoon-jeong, deputy spokesperson at the ministry, told a regular press briefing on Friday.
“We will continue to closely monitor activities by Chairman Kim Jong-un’s daughter.”
On Thursday, Kim attended a large-scale celebratory performance marking the new year in Pyongyang, also accompanied by his wife and daughter.
Video footage aired by the state-run Korean Central Television showed Ju-ae seated next to him during the event. Clad in a leather coat matching her father’s, she was seen holding his hand and whispering to him as they watched the performance, and kissing him on his cheek after the New Year’s countdown ended.
(IANS)
