Kim unleashes secret weapon on South Korea – 229 cheerleaders in matching outfits

The cheerleaders – who travelled south wearing matching outfits – have been despatched to spur on athletes from both North and South Korea at the Winter Olympic Games which opens in Pyeongchang on Friday.

They were joined by 26 taekwondo fighters, 21 journalists and four North Korean Olympics committee members, including Sports Minister Kim Il-guk.

The North Korean delegation celebrated its first night in South Korea with a banquet at its hotel, dining on roasted scallops, steak, beef marrow soup and shrimp.

They arrived a day after a North Korean ferry crossed the border with a 137-strong orchestra to perform during the Games.

And Kim’s 28-year-old sister will make her debut on the world stage when she visits South Korea to attend the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics on Friday.

Pyongyang told Seoul that Kim Yo-jong would accompany Kim Yong-nam, North Korea’s nominal head of state, along with Choe Hwi, chairman of the National Sports Guidance Committee, and Ri Songwon, who led inter-Korean talks last month.

Kim Yo-jong will be the first member of the Kim family to cross the border into South Korea.

Her inclusion in the delegation is “meaningful” as she is not only the sister of the country’s leader but has a significant position as a senior official of the ruling Workers’ Party.

Kim Eui-kyeom, a spokesman for South Korea’s presidential Blue House, said: “It shows the North’s resolve to defuse tension on the Korean peninsula.”

But her participation has raised diplomatic issues as Kim Yo-jong was blacklisted last year by the US Treasury Department over human rights abuses and censorship while Choe is subject to a travel ban under UN Security Council sanctions.

Kim Yo-jong is vice director of the party’s Propaganda and Agitation Department, which handles ideological messaging through the media, arts and culture and Choe had previously worked for the same body.

In 2016, South Korea’s former spy chief said Kim Yo-jong was seen “abusing power” by punishing propaganda department executives for “minor mistakes”.

Shin Beom-chul, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy in Seoul, said: “One of the positives of her visit is that she is someone able to deliver a direct message on behalf of Kim Jong-un.

“What is problematic is that she’s coming with Choe Hwi and this raises worries that North Korea likely intends to use this Olympics as a propaganda tool, rather than a possible opening to meaningful dialogue with South Korea.”