Top N.K. official included in his leader's entourage after 3-month absence

SEOUL, Jan. 20 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's leader has visited a newly built museum on the youth movement, accompanied by his key aide Choe Ryong-hae, who has recently returned to the public eye after being punished for three months, the North's state media said Wednesday.

The North's leader Kim Jong-un has given so-called field guidance to the Youth Movement Museum, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

His entourage included Choe, a secretary of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, who has resumed public activities about three months after he was reportedly sent to a rural farm for punishment.

Choe is believed to have been receiving re-education at the farm since November as punishment for his mishandling of a newly built hydroelectric power plant project, according to intelligence officials here.

His disappearance from the public eye had spawned speculation over his fate under leader Kim Jong-un's reign of terror. Many North Korean officials have been purged under Kim's rule that began in late 2011.

Choe's whereabouts have been in the media spotlight since he was found to have been omitted from a list of a committee that prepared the state funeral for a North Korean military marshal in early November.

But his name appeared on a list of members that prepared the funeral of Kim Yang-gon, a party secretary handling inter-Korean affairs, who died in a car accident in December.

sooyeon@yna.co.kr
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