South Korean officials announced that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister, Kim Yo-jong, will attend the opening ceremony of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in Seoul.
RELATED:
Unified Korean Women's Hockey Team Plays for First Time
According to South Korea's unification ministry, Yo-jong will attend the ceremony as a member of the North's 22-strong high-level delegation.
The delegation will reportedly visit the South for three days.
Yo-jong, who was promoted to North Korea’s top decision-making body last year, is the youngest daughter of late leader Kim Jong-il.
Late last year, Jong-un informed the Central Committee that his sister would become an alternate member of the body.
His sister's promotion "shows that her portfolio and writ is far more substantive than previously believed", Michael Madden, a North Korea expert at Johns Hopkins University's 38 North, explained in a Sky News interview last year.
He added that the move is a "further consolidation of the Kim family's power."
Pyongyang informed Seoul Yo-jong would be accompanying Kim Yong-nam, North Korea’s nominal head of state and two other senior officials.
Both Koreas are expected to march under a unified flag at the opening ceremony.