Increasingly prominent appearances stoke speculation Kim Jong Un is grooming his teenage daughter as a future leader.<\/p>\n
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Published On 28 Feb 202628 Feb 2026<\/p>\n
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has presented new sniper rifles to top government and military officials following a weeklong governing party congress lauding his leadership.<\/p>\n
State media highlighted an image of his teenage daughter taking aim at a shooting range as her increasingly prominent appearances stoke speculation that Kim is grooming her as a future leader.<\/p>\n
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Kim presented the rifles to senior party and military officials on Friday, calling them a sign of his \u201cabsolute trust\u201d and gratitude for their commitment over the past five years since the last Workers\u2019 Party of Korea congress in 2021, according to North Korea\u2019s official Korean Central News Agency on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The report also confirmed that Kim\u2019s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, who in recent years has served as his fierce spokesperson with hostile rhetoric directed towards the United States and South Korea, now serves as the general affairs director of the party\u2019s central committee, following a promotion.<\/p>\n
Her new title signals a broader role overseeing the party\u2019s internal operations and administrative affairs.<\/p>\n
State media photos showed Kim Yo Jong and other top officials aiming the rifles handed out by Kim Jong Un at a shooting range. Kim\u2019s young daughter, wearing a brown leather coat similar to her father\u2019s, was also seen handling a weapon.<\/p>\n
Since first appearing in public at a long-range missile test in November 2022, the girl \u2013 believed to be named Kim Ju Ae and about 13 years old \u2013 has accompanied her father to a growing number of events, including military demonstrations, factory openings and a trip to Beijing in September, where Kim Jong Un held his first summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in six years.<\/p>\n
The party congress, which concluded on Wednesday with a military parade in the capital, Pyongyang, after seven days, is North Korea\u2019s most significant political event, held every five years since 2016, and a carefully choreographed spectacle glorifying Kim\u2019s leadership before some 5,000 delegates.<\/p>\n
At this year\u2019s meetings, Kim reiterated his plans to accelerate North Korea\u2019s nuclear arsenal, which already is equipped with various weapons systems threatening the US and its allies in Asia, and confirmed his hardline view of rival South Korea.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Kim dismissed dialogue with South Korea, claiming his forces could \u201ccompletely destroy\u201d his southern neighbour<\/a>, while signalling that the future of talks with the US required Washington to discard \u201chostile\u201d policies towards Pyongyang.<\/p>\n If Washington \u201crespects our country\u2019s current status as stipulated in the Constitution \u2026 and withdraws its hostile policy \u2026 there is no reason why we cannot get along well with the United States\u201d, Kim said on Wednesday, as the country\u00a0wrapped up the week<\/a> of meetings.<\/p>\n He repeated Pyongyang\u2019s earlier stance, calling for the US to abandon demands for the North\u2019s denuclearisation as a condition for resuming talks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Increasingly prominent appearances stoke speculation Kim Jong Un is grooming his teenage daughter as a future leader. Listen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1296,49,40596,50,15414,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-450080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-asia-pacific","tag-headlines","tag-kim-jong-un","tag-news","tag-north-korea","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}