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Jan. 10 (UPI) -- North Korea's plan to send its national team to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics is triggering speculation in the South that Pyongyang could send top officials, including Kim Jong Un's sister Kim Yo Jong. The younger sibling of the North Korean ruler is rarely seen in public, but is a powerful figure who directs the regime's propaganda efforts and the idolization of her brother.
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According to South Korean news service Newsis, Kim Yo Jong could be selected to attend the opening ceremony of the Winter Games, should the United States choose to send U.S. President Donald Trump's eldest daughter Ivanka to the Olympics.
The possibility North Korea could send Choe Ryong Hae, arguably North Korea's second-most powerful man, is higher.
Choe previously accompanied North Korean athletes to the 2016 Rio Olympics and visited South Korea during the 2014 Incheon Asian Games.
Kim Yo Jong's attendance is being raised as a possibility following a meeting between North and South Korean officials in the truce village of Panmunjom.
In its statement of attendance at the Winter Olympics, North Korea said it would dispatch a "high-level delegation."
Pyongyang also stated it would send a cheerleading squad, a performing arts group and a Korean taekwondo demonstration team.
North Korea could be considering sending the all-women Moranbong Band as part of the delegation, South Korean television network MBC reported Wednesday.
The band was previously sent overseas to tour China, but the trip was ended abruptly after band members and Chinese authorities quarreled in Beijing in 2015.
Kang Dong-wan, a political scientist at South Korea's Dong-A University, said Kim Jong Un declared the band as a replacement for "hundreds of thousands of tons of food" when he created and named the group, according to MBC.
Baek Mi-gyeong, a North Korean defector and former singer, said North Koreans regard the Moranbong Band as the most superior musical group in the country.
