North Korean leader Kim Jong Un revealed his daughter to the world for the first time on Saturday in striking photos showing the pair hand-in-hand before the launch of the nuclear-armed country\u2019s largest ballistic missile the day before.<\/p>\n
North Korea test-fired a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday, Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Saturday.<\/p>\n
A surprising addition to the launch was the presence of Kim\u2019s daughter, whose existence had never been publicly confirmed before.<\/p>\n
Her unexpected appearance raises the prospect that leadership of the totalitarian state could pass to the fourth generation of Kims and suggests that nuclear weapons will be part of that inheritance, analysts said.<\/p>\n
KCNA did not name the girl, who is seen in photographs in a white puffy coat holding hands with her father as they looked at the massive missile.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first observed occasion where we have seen Kim Jong Un\u2019s daughter at a public event,\u201d said Michael Madden, a North Korea leadership expert at the US-based Stimson Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is highly significant and represents a certain degree of comfort on Kim Jong Un\u2019s part that he would bring her out in public in such fashion,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Jenny Town of 38 North, a Washington-based North Korea research organisation, said that Kim\u2019s taking his daughter to an ICBM test and publishing pictures of the two of them watching the launch suggests he is not about to bow to pressure to slow his weapons programmes or return to negotiations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat has the gravity of handing down a legacy,\u201d she said. \u201cThese optics give the sense that these are part of her legacy too now,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un revealed his daughter to the world for the first time on Saturday in striking photos showing the pair hand-in-hand before the launch of the nuclear-armed country\u2019s largest ballistic missile the day before. North Korea test-fired a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday, Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296178,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-296167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n