A magazine linked to North Korea's ruling party has sparked speculation about a potential successor to leader Kim Jong-un, according to a South Korean media report published on Thursday.
Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency said the article mentioning designating a successor to Kim appeared in a March 2025 issue of the North Korean Geunroja ("workers") magazine, published for officials of the Workers' Party of Korea. Yonhap managed to obtain the issue only recently.
The report has drawn attention as Kim, believed to be 42, has increasingly appeared in public with his young daughter, fuelling questions about succession.
The South Korean media suggests her name is Ju-ae. She is believed to have been born in 2012.
The magazine mentioned "issue of designating a successor to inherit the status and role of the political head and establishing (the designee's) leadership", Yonhap reported.
It described the issue as "central to handling the country's leadership succession".
There was no mention of Ju-ae in the article.
"Designating a successor in line with the people's respect and trust, and the collective will of the party as well as establishing the successor's leadership while the state head is alive" were listed as central to addressing the succession issue, the Yonhap report added.
Pyongyang has not publicly discussed the successor of the country's incumbent leader, who is a third-generation ruler from the Kim family.
Kim took power in 2011 after his father and North Korea's second leader, Kim Jong-il, died.
The incumbent's grandfather, Kim Il-sung, is the founding leader of the North Korean state, who ruled until 1994 after the end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945.
