So when Kim Jong-un’s aunt vanished from public life six years ago, it was assumed she had been purged from the totalitarian regime’s ranks or had found herself facing a firing squad. Given her husband had also been executed, rumours were rife she had met the same fate.

But on Sunday she unexpectedly reappeared again, sitting just metres away from the leader at a high-profile event.

The re-emergence of Kim Kyong-hui has amazed Korea watchers who are speculating on why she has found herself back in the good books after years of seemingly being shunned. One theory is the Kim family is showing a united front as its relationship with the US becomes increasingly frosty.

According to the Pyongyang government-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the name of Kim Kyong-hui was included in a list of top North Korean officials who watched a performance marking Lunar New Year’s Day with Kim Jong-un at a theatre in the capital city on Saturday.

North Korea’s main newspaper also released a photo showing Kim Kyong-hui sitting near Kim Jong-un and his wife, Ri Sol Ju, at the Samjiyon Theater.

She isn’t in focus and is subordinate to her nephew, but that Kim Kyong-hui is in the image at all suggests she now has a seal of approval from the leader.

Kim Kyong-hui, 73, was once an influential figure in North Korea as the only sister of late leader Kim Jong-il, the father of Kim Jong-un. She had initially kept a low profile during the early part of her brother’s rule, but Kim Kyong-hui later frequently accompanied him on his inspection trips after he suffered a stroke in 2008.

HUSBAND EXECUTED

While taking up many top posts such as a four-star army general and a member of the powerful Politburo, she was also believed to have played a key role in grooming Kim Jong-un as the next leader. Kim Jong-un eventually took power after his father died of a heart attack in late 2011.

Kim Kyong-hui’s fate had been in doubt after Kim Jong-un had her husband Jang Song Thaek executed for treason and corruption in December 2013. His death was reported by the North and remains the most significant in a series of executions or purges that Kim Jong-un has engineered in what outside experts believe were attempts to remove potential rivals and cement his grip on power.

‘WEIRD AND BRUTAL’

Days after Jang’s execution, Kim Kyong-hui’s name was mentioned in a KCNA dispatch as a member of a funeral committee for another top official. But she missed a state ceremony commemorating the second anniversary of Kim Jong-il’s death days later. Her name had since never been mentioned in North Korean state media until Sunday’s KCNA report.

Oliver Hotham, editor at NK News, an influential publication that reports on the closed country, said it was a surprise to see Kim Kyong-hui back in public life.

“Many North Korea watchers had assumed that Kim Kyong-hui had gone into exile or even been killed in the wake of her husband’s death,” he told Reuters.

“It’s also a reminder of how weird and brutal North Korea is. After, all she’s sitting next to the man who ordered her husband’s execution.”

UNITED FRONT AGAINST UNITED STATES?

Some North Korea monitoring groups in Seoul and foreign media outlets had speculated Kim Jong-un had his aunt executed or purged, or she died of health problems. Outside experts said Kim Kyong-hui had long suffered from liver and heart problems and high blood pressure.

It’s extremely difficult to track developments in North Korea, the world’s most closed country. Supposedly executed officials have later appeared on the North’s state TV. Even South Korea’s spy agency has had a mixed record on figuring out what’s going across the border, but it previously dismissed speculation on Kim Kyong-hui’s possible execution and said she was receiving medical treatment.

Analyst Cheong Seong-Chang at South Korea’s private Sejong Institute said Kim Kyong-hui’s re-emergence suggested Kim Jong-un was attempting to strengthen the unity of his ruling family as he’s pushing to harden his position toward the United States in stalled nuclear negotiations.

Cheong, however, predicted that Kim Kyong-hui wouldn’t likely regain her political influence as she now had no position in the Politburo, which has already been filled with new figures.

Since Kim Jong-un’s grandfather Kim Il Sung established the North Korean government in 1948, his family has carried on the veneration of royal blood, making the Kims the subject of an intense personality cult.

With AP