Kim Jong-Un's Ties With South Korea Run Deeper Than Known, Graveyard Reveals

North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-Un is known for often issuing fiery threats to South Korea, but his connection to the neighboring country reportedly goes much deeper.

What Happened: According to an AFP report, a graveyard in South Korea's Jeju island has several tombstones bearing the family name "Ko" — the same as Kim's relatives from his mother Ko Yong Hui's side.

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The report pointed out that Kim's mother was born in 1952 in Japan's Osaka to a native Jeju islander, who emigrated to Japan under Tokyo's colonial rule. 

She later moved to North Korea in the 1960s as part of a repatriation program by Pyongyang.

The Jeju island cemetery has many of her family buried, including Kim's maternal great-grandfather, according to the report.

When Kim came to power in 2011 following the death of his father and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, many experts had pointed out that his mother was of a South Korean heritage – but Pyongyang never confirmed it.

Dr. Cheong Seong-chang of the Centre for North Korea Studies at the Sejong Institute told AFP that the supreme leader and his administration "must have feared confirmation would undermine its legitimacy."

Why It Matters: South Korean and North Korean rivalry has worsened over the years. The recently elected South Korean leader Yoon Suk Yeol told CNN that the age of appeasing North Korea is over, and Kim must initiate any new talks between Seoul and Pyongyang.

Meanwhile, as of June 1, the number of COVID-19 cases in North Korea inched closer to the 4 million mark, according to the state media estimates.

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Photo via U.S. Department of State on Wikimedia