Seoul: Kim Yo Jong was appointed as State Affairs Commission of North Korea on Thursday by her brother Kim Jong Un. According to KCNA news agency reports she has been appointed to the country’s top Government body.

She was promoted to a position on the State Affairs Commission amid a raft of changes approved by the Supreme People’s Assembly, the rubber stamp parliament. No fewer than nine members of the commission were dismissed, including one of its vice-presidents, Pak Pong Ju, and diplomat Choe Son Hui, a rare senior woman in the North’s hierarchy who has played a key role in negotiations with the United States.

The official Rodong Sinmun newspaper carried portraits of the eight new appointees on Thursday, Kim Yo Jong standing out among them both for her youth and as the only woman. She has often been seen in close proximity to her brother with whom she went to school in Switzerland including at his summits with then US president Donald Trump and the South’s leader Moon Jae in.