The U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia raised speculation Tuesday that Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, may have married a senior official of Room 39, an agency that maintains the dictatorial ruler’s foreign currency slush funds.

The RFA cited a Korean-Chinese businessman, who recently traveled to Pyongyang, as saying that a senior official of a trade company associated with Room 39 told him that Kim Yo-jong had got married. He said Kim’s husband was rumored to be working at Room 39.

“There is nothing unusual to expect Kim to have gotten married as she has reached the optimal age for marriage. (People) are wondering about who her husband is, as he could emerge as another powerful figure in the North’s top echelons,” the businessman was cited as saying.

South Korean intelligence officials told media that nothing had been confirmed.

Kim Yo-jong, believed to be in her mid- or late 20s, emerged at the center of the North’s political circles earlier this year.

In March, the North Korean media first mentioned her name alongside other top elites such as Hwang Pyong-so, the director of the North Korean military’s General Political Bureau. Observers say she might have taken a vice minister post in the communist state.

Kim Jong-un and Yo-jong, born to the same mother Ko Yong-hui, spent their school years together in Switzerland. As Yo-jong is the only sister sharing the leader’s dynastic pedigree, keen attention has been paid to what role she would play to support her brother.

Particularly at a time when the health of Kim Kyong-hui, the leader’s only aunt, is failing, Kim Yo-jong’s political role is expected to increase to back the ruler’s management of state affairs, analysts said.

A flurry of speculations has persisted surrounding the ailing aunt. Some say she has already died of a terminal disease, while others say that she has been in a vegetative state. She is rumored to have suffered from various illnesses including depression, cancer, dementia and heart disease.

Should it be confirmed that Kim Yo-jong is married, her relationship would be at the center of the ruler’s inner circles just as Kim Kyong-hui and her late husband Jang Song-thaek did when the late leader Kim Jong-il was in power.

Although Jang was executed last year for attempting to overthrow the regime, he had played a core role in proping up the Kim dynasty. After Jang tied the knot with the late national leader Kim Il-sung’s daughter in the early 1970s, he gained enormous power in the ruling party, state and even the military. He was dubbed the country’s No. 2 man.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)