The delegation, made up mostly of a 229-member cheer squad, reached a border checkpoint by bus at about 9.30am local time. Almost overnight, with friendly smiles and messages of reconciliation, Ms. Kim managed to help soften her country’s image among South Koreans, at least for the moment. South Korean media scrutinized every detail, including style of dress and handwriting, of Ms. Kim, the first immediate member of the Kim family to set foot in the South. But his efforts did little to stop the hoopla over Ms. Kim. “Kim Yo-jong from the North was a nuclear bomb with a smile,” a conservative newspaper columnist wrote, lamenting the Moon government’s treatment of a member of a family condemned by the United Nations for widespread human rights violations. Facebook; Twitter; Share View more share options. Shin Beom-chul, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy in Seoul, said: “One of the positives of her visit is that she is someone able to deliver a direct message on behalf of Kim Jong-un. Moon met her four times during her three-day trip. Article share tools. But her trip put Ms. Kim very much closer to center stage. Outside officials are not even sure about her age or marital status, though she is most often said to be 30 and married. Both studied together in Switzerland between 1996 and 2000 with each depending on the other for company and support during those isolated years. On Tuesday, she was pictured in the state media greeting a North Korean art troupe that has since departed for the South to perform during the Olympics. In addition to the cheering squad, there were 26 taekwondo performers, 21 journalists and four North Korean Olympics committee members, including the sports minister, Kim Il-guk. Lee Sung-yoon, a Korea expert at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, said, “Trump and Pence will come across more and more as grumpy old men as Kim Jong-un continues to sharpen his knife and his sister flashes that mysterious smile.”. Kim Yo-jong is the vice-director of the North Korean propaganda and agitation department, which handles ideological messaging through the media, arts and culture. Just a few months ago, North Korea was regarded as nothing but a menace, rattling the region with nuclear and missile tests and staging bloody political purges at home. “It is important to continue making good results by further livening up the warm climate of reconciliation and dialogue created by the strong desire and common will of the North and the South with the Winter Olympics as a momentum,” Mr. Kim said, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Tuesday. Despite the intense curiosity her visit generated, little is known about Ms. Kim, a member of the most secretive ruling dynasty in the world. Vice President Mike Pence, who was leading the American delegation to the Olympics, warned that the North was trying to “hijack the message and imagery of the Olympic Games” with its “propaganda” and a “charm offensive.” Mr. Pence mounted a counterpropaganda campaign of sorts, meeting defectors from North Korea and bringing with him the father of Otto F. Warmbier, an American university student who died last year shortly after he was released from months of detention in the North. Mr. Kim “expressed satisfaction” after Ms. Kim briefed him on Monday about her trip to the South. South Korean officials were told Kim was expecting a child during her three-day visit to the south, the Korea Herald has claimed. In South Korean media, Ms. Kim was nicknamed “Princess” or “North Korea’s Ivanka,” likening her influence with her brother to that of Ivanka Trump’s on her father, President Trump. This raises worries that North Korea likely intends to use this Olympics as a propaganda tool rather than a possible opening to meaningful dialogue with South Korea.”. Even as she was being welcomed home at the Pyongyang airport on Sunday, she stayed a step behind, letting Kim Yong-nam, the North’s nominal head of state and the chief delegate to the South, inspect the honor guard. Moon, the South Korean leader, responded with caution to Ms. Kim’s overtures. During a government briefing in Seoul on Monday, a reporter asked whether Ms. Kim was pregnant, saying she appeared to have a slight baby bump. In November 2014, Yo-jong was named First Deputy Director of the Workers Party's Propaganda and Agitation Department. Her light makeup and modest, even prim, clothes were a contrast to those of her fashionably dressed sister-in-law, Ri Sol-ju. Her first job title given in a state news address was a "senior official" of the ruling Workers' Party Central Committee. She is said to have had a close relationship with brother Kim Jong-un from an early age.

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