Kim Yo Jong is among the officials who won promotions at the country’s ruling-party congress.
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The term “comrade” was not used for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in a message sent by Chinese President Xi Jinping to congratulate Kim on his election as chairman of the North’s ruling party.
North Korea’s former military chief of staff who was reported executed earlier this year is apparently alive and well after being named Tuesday in a number of senior ruling party posts.
The selection of Kim’s younger sister was confirmed in a list of the 129-member committee released by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
The event gave the 33-year-old Kim, who came to power following the death of his father Kim Jong-Il in 2011, a podium to secure his status as supreme leader and rightful inheritor of the one-party state founded by his grandfather, Kim Il-Sung.
The congress cemented the position of leader Kim Jong-un, elevating him to the role of party chairman.
Xi added that he hoped North Korea “will achieve new accomplishments in the cause of building socialism under the leadership of the WPK headed by Kim”.
Gen. Ri Yong-gil turned up in official state media accounts of the recently concluded Workers’ Party Congress.
“The Pyongyang mass rally and procession began at Kim Il-sung Square Tuesday in celebration of the successful 7th Congress of the WPK”, the state-run KCNA news agency reported.
But the relationship between the two nations, once said to be as close as lips and teeth, has become increasingly strained as China’s patience with the North’s refusal to rein in its nuclear weapons ambitions has worn increasingly thin.
British Broadcasting Corporation correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes is being expelled from North Korea, authorities have announced at a press conference.
An unusually large contingent of 128 foreign journalists from 12 countries were issued visas to visit the secretive country during the congress, but their access to formal proceedings was limited to a brief visit by a small group to the event venue late on Monday. Instead, he was stopped at the airport, detained and questioned.
Kim also said he is ready to improve ties with “hostile” nations in a diplomatic overture in the face of worldwide pressure over its recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.
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DPRK is the official abbreviation for North Korea. The BBC was among the media organizations allowed into the congress on Monday.
