SEOUL: The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un will visit the South this week for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, Seoul said Wednesday—the first member of its ruling family ever to do so.

Kim Yo-Jong, who is a senior member of the ruling Workers’ Party, will be part of a high-level delegation due Friday and led by the North’s ceremonial head of state, the unification ministry said.

The two Koreas have been divided by the Demilitarized Zone since the end of the Korean War in 1953, and Pyongyang’s pursuit of nuclear weapons have seen it subjected to multiple rounds of United Nations Security Council sanctions.

Tensions soared last year as the North carried out multiple weapons tests, including intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the US mainland, and by far its most powerful nuclear test to date.