Kim Jong-un’s wife, Ri Sol-ju, makes rare public appearance at gala banquet to celebrate nuclear tests
Kim
Jong-un’s wife has made a rare public appearance alongside the North
Korean leader at a celebration of the pariah state’s advancing nuclear
capabilities.
Ri
Sol-ju was photographed at a gala banquet for the engineers who
conducted country’s most powerful nuclear test to date last Sunday. The
celebration is believed to have taken play at the People's Theatre in
the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.
The
dictator’s wife has barely been seen in public in recent years,
prompting speculation she may
have given birth to the couple’s third
child recently.
Kim,
33, broke with tradition when he was first appeared in public with Ri
in 2012 and since then North Korean media has referred to her has his
wife. Neither Mr Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, nor father, Kim
Jong-il, were ever photographed with their wives or partners in public.
Ri
and Kim are reported to have met around 2010 when she was a member of
the country’s Unhasu orchestra. The 27-year-old First Lady of the
impoverished state is said to have a penchant for luxury goods and was
seeen in 2012 with a Dior handbag reportedly worth over £1,000.
The
couple has two children, whose genders are unknown. It is unusual for
North Koreans to have more than two children, but Kim may have felt
pressure to have a third if the first two were girls.
Pictures
released by state-run newswire KCNA showed rows of uniformed officials
clapping in delight at their nation's progress in developing a weapon of
mass destruction.
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