N Korean leader 'married in 2009'

A South Korean lawmaker has said North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un has actually been married since 2009, and his wife has visited South Korea. Above, the couple visit an amusement park in Pyongyang. Source: AFP

NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has reportedly been married since 2009 and his wife once visited South Korea.

A Seoul lawmaker made the claim a day after the secretive North first disclosed the match.

Kim has been the subject of intense foreign interest since he took over the impoverished but nuclear-armed nation after his father Kim Jong-Il died suddenly last December.

But even his exact age is unknown outside the North, although he is thought to be in his late twenties, and his marriage to Ri Sol-Ju had been a closely guarded secret.

Legislator Jung Chung-Rai, citing what he said was information given to a closed parliamentary session by the South's National Intelligence Service (NIS), said Ms Ri was born in 1989 and had studied singing in China.

Ms Ri visited Incheon, west of Seoul, in September 2005 as a member of her country's cheering squad for the Asian Athletics Championships, Jung said.

An NIS spokesman declined to disclose what was said in the closed meeting.

The North's regime is bitterly hostile to the South's government, threatening "sacred war" over perceived insults to the Kim dynasty, which has ruled the North since its founding in 1948.

Ms Ri, a stylish short-haired young woman usually wearing high heels, has been pictured several times this month accompanying Kim, sparking fevered speculation outside North Korea as to her identity.

The North's state media disclosed Wednesday she is his wife, without giving further details, but the mere fact that the couple were pictured in public marked a new departure for the regime.

The state news agency said the pair enjoyed a song-and-dance performance in the capital Pyongyang.

Kim's youth and inexperience have raised questions about the country's second dynastic succession.

In public, he has presented a relaxed and confident image in an apparent attempt to emphasise his readiness to rule. The disclosure of the marriage was seen as part of the process.

While Kim Jong-Il's wives were never pictured at official functions, "the regime is now facing a different situation, and the move is part of work to make Kim Jong-Un appear old and wise enough to rule", said Seoul-based online newspaper the Daily NK.

The aim is partly to show "he is not a child", said Chang Yong-Suk, of the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University.

"If he went around alone, people would look down on him as a young lad, but with his wife present, he could show he is the head of the family and also an adult," Mr Chang said.

South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, and other media, said Ms Ri is believed to be a former singer who came to the young Kim's notice during a performance.

Kim's father had singled her out as a potential first lady while working on his succession plan, JoongAng said.

Ms Ri is a Kim Il-Sung University graduate from the northeastern province of North Hamkyong and her father is an academic and mother a doctor, the paper said.

Kim appears fully in charge of his country, despite speculation he would rely on close advisers because of his youth and inexperience, the International Crisis Group think-tank said in a report this week.

But it said there was nothing to suggest he would take measures to improve the lot of his people amid severe food shortages, or reduce regional frictions over the North's nuclear and missile programs.

original: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/n-korean-leader-married-in-2009/story-fnd134gw-1226436285259