[Yonhap News Photo]
SEOUL, Feb. 20 (Aju News) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's younger sister who made her diplomatic debut this month in South Korea was found to be pregnant probably with her second child, according to a South Korean press report on Tuesday.
Yonhap News Agency quoted an unnamed government official as saying Kim Yo-jong, presumed to be 30, was pregnant.
South Korean officials knew about her pregnancy well before Yo-jong accompanied a high-level North Korean delegation to attend the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in the eastern ski resort of Pyeongchang on February 9, Yonhap said.
Speculation grew about Yo-jong's pregnancy the following day when TV footages showed her belly, which appeared to be swollen and protrusive, during her landmark conversation with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
The private life of North Korea's ruling Kim family has been a top state secret. In April 2015, South Korea's spy agency said in parliament that Yo-jong was expected to give birth the following month.
Defectors and experts claimed that Yo-jong and her brother studied together in Switzerland. Intelligence officials in Seoul said her husband may be an alumnus of her alma mater, Kim Il-sung University.
Yo-jong, the first vice director of the propaganda and agitation department of the North's Workers Party of Korea, has assisted Kim Jong-un in the rear of her brother since he took power following the sudden death of his father in December 2011. Experts in Seoul believe she is in charge of developing her brother's cult of personality.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
