North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister joined athletes and officials from around the world at the South’s Winter Olympics on Friday, the first member of Pyongyang’s ruling dynasty to set foot in its rival since the Korean War.
Kim Yo Jong was part of a diplomatic delegation led by ceremonial head of state Kim Yong Nam — the highest-level North Korean official ever to go to the South — as the Games trigger a diplomatic rapprochement between the rivals.
Ahead of the opening ceremony, the South’s President Moon Jae-in shook hands with Kim Yong Nam at a leaders’ gathering in Pyeongchang, but Seoul’s Blue House said US Vice President Mike Pence did not and left before the event ended.
Both Washington and Tokyo are regularly threatened by Pyongyang, but Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did shake hands and exchange words with Kim, Seoul’s spokesman said.
Moon is scheduled to have lunch with the Pyongyang delegation on Saturday.
Their white Ilyushin-62 jet, marked in Korean script “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”, the North’s official name, and its tailfin emblazoned with a Northern emblem, touched down earlier at Incheon airport near Seoul, in a rare direct flight between the two halves of the divided peninsula.
The last member of the Kim family to set foot in Seoul was Yo Jong’s grandfather Kim Il Sung, the North’s founder, after his forces invaded in 1950 and the capital fell.
