South Korea says Kim Jong Un has designated teenage daughter as successor
North Korea's leader is consolidating his daughter Kim Ju-ae's position through public appearances and involvement in state decisions, Seoul's intelligence agency told lawmakers Thursday.
35 min ago
South Korea's National Intelligence Service said Thursday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has designated his teenage daughter Kim Ju-ae as his successor, marking an escalation from the agency's previous assessment that she was the "most likely successor."
The NIS informed lawmakers during a closed-door briefing that Ju-ae has entered the stage of being internally designated as successor, according to South Korean parliamentarians Lee Seong-kweun and Park Sun-won who spoke to reporters after the session.
"Previously, the NIS described Kim Ju-ae as a successor in the process of study, but the expression used today was that she was in the stage of being designated internally as successor," Lee said.
The intelligence agency cited several factors in its assessment. Ju-ae has made increasingly prominent public appearances at official events in recent months, including attendance at the founding anniversary of the Korean People's Army and a visit to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the mausoleum where members of the Kim dynasty are interred. The NIS also said it detected signs that Ju-ae has begun expressing her views on certain state policies and is being treated in practice as the regime's number two.
Little is publicly known about Ju-ae. South Korean intelligence assesses her age at approximately 13 years old, though her exact birth date remains unclear. In September 2025, she made her first known trip abroad, accompanying her father to Beijing. She has been increasingly featured in North Korean state media alongside her father at various official functions.
The NIS will closely monitor whether Ju-ae attends an upcoming party congress of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party later this month, according to the lawmakers. The party congress, held once every five years, is the country's largest political event and is expected to outline Pyongyang's priorities for the next five years, including foreign policy, war planning, and nuclear ambitions.
The Kim family has maintained authoritarian rule over North Korea for decades, sustained by a personality cult centered on the family's lineage that permeates daily life in the isolated nation. The designation of a successor typically involves a gradual process of public positioning and involvement in state affairs before formal confirmation.
South Korean lawmakers said the NIS based its assessment on "a range of circumstances," including Ju-ae's increasingly prominent public presence at official events.