This file picture taken on March 2, 2019 shows Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, attending a wreath laying ceremony at Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi. (AFP-Yonhap) The North Korean leader’s influential sister on Thursday rebuffed a recent reconciliatory overture by South Korea as a “pipedream,” denying Seoul’s military claim that the North has removed some propaganda loudspeakers targeting Seoul along the inter-Korean border.
“We have clarified on several occasions that we have no will to improve relations with the ROK … and this conclusive stand and viewpoint will be fixed in our constitution in the future,” Kim Yo-jong said in a statement. ROK stands for South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.
The remarks came amid a series of reconciliatory gestures by the new Lee Jae Myung administration, from suspending propaganda broadcasts targeting the regime to dismantling Seoul’s border-area loudspeakers and adjusting the annual summertime joint military exercise with Washington, all aimed at improving frayed ties with Pyongyang.
The South Korean military said the North had removed some of its loudspeakers in response to Seoul’s actions. During a Cabinet meeting earlier this week, Lee also noted the North was dismantling loudspeakers, expressing hope that these reciprocal measures would open the door to inter-Korean dialogue.
Kim, vice department director of the North Korean ruling party’s central committee, denied these claims.
“It is unfounded unilateral supposition and a red herring. We have never removed loudspeakers installed on the border area and are not willing to remove them,” she noted.
Kim also warned that the recent adjustment to the upcoming Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military drills “does not deserve praise and will prove futile.” Seoul has postponed nearly half of the roughly 40 drills under the exercise, scheduled for Aug. 18-28, to next month, apparently as part of an appeasement toward Pyongyang.
Kim called it Seoul’s “foolish calculation” to expect North Korea would respond to its reconciliatory actions, accusing Seoul of trying in fact to shift responsibility for escalating tensions onto the North and win international support. “Such a trick is nothing but a ‘pipedream,’ and it does not arouse our interest at all,” she said.
“Whether the ROK withdraws its loudspeakers or not, stops broadcasting or not, postpones its military exercises or not and downscales them or not, we do not care about them and are not interested in them,” Kim also noted.
The leader’s sister reiterated Pyongyang’s stance that it is not interested in resuming dialogue with the US as long as the focus remains on the country’s denuclearization.
“The special personal relations between the top leaders of the DPRK and the US will not be reflected in the policy and that if the US persists with the outdated way of thinking, the meeting between the top leaders will remain only the ‘hope’ of the US side,” she said.
Kim also rejected speculation that a message from North Korea could be delivered to US President Donald Trump via Russian President Vladimir Putin when the presidents meet for a summit in Alaska on Friday to discuss how to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
“Why should we send a message to the US side?” she said. “We have nothing to do with the US.” (Yonhap)