Pyongyang, Jan 27 (TIWN) Kim Kyong-hui, a once-powerful aunt of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has made her first public appearance in more than six years, Pyongyang's state media said on Sunday.

Kim Kyong Hui is the sister of former North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, and took a leading role during the first years of current leader Kim Jong Un's rule.  She had largely disappeared from public view since 2013, after Kim Jong Un ordered the execution of her husband, Jang Song Thaek, seen as the second most powerful man in the North at the time.  On Sunday, state media showed Kim Kyong Hui sitting near Kim Jong Un at a performance celebrating the Lunar New Year in Pyongyang.  "Many North Korea watchers had assumed that Kim Kyong Hui had gone into exile or even killed in the wake of her husband’s death, so to see her pop up by the leader’s side some six years later is certainly a surprise," said Oliver Hotham, managing editor of NK News, a Seoul-based organization that monitors North Korea.