North Korea issued a scathing personal attack yesterday on South Korean President Park Geun-hye, accusing her of breaking a moratorium on cross-border insults and behaving like a “blabbering” peasant woman.
The attack referenced a speech Park made on Monday at a nuclear summit in The Hague in which she voiced concern that Pyongyang’s nuclear material could end up in terrorist hands, and warned of a possible Chernobyl-style disaster at the North’s main Yongbyong atomic complex.
A spokesman for the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) said Park’s remarks “violently trampled” on an agreement reached at rare, high-level talks last month for the two Koreas to stop “slandering” one another.
If Park genuinely wants to see improvements in inter-Korean relations, “she first has to stop rambling recklessly and learn how to speak with discretion,” the spokesman said in a statement carried by North Korea’s official KCNA news agency.
“Even if someone else wrote the dumb speech for her to read from, she should at least know what and what not to say... in order not to embarrass herself,” the spokesman said. “She should realize she is no longer a peasant woman blabbering to herself in the corner of her room, but the occupant of the [presidential] Blue House.”
North Korea has made similarly vitriolic attacks on Park in the past, but this was the first since last month’s agreement.
North Korea had pushed hard for the “no slander” clause, which observers said was always going to prove problematic.
North Korea insists it should extend to the media, private groups and individuals, while South Korea argues that it cannot restrict freedom of speech.
Seoul denounced the CPRK statement as “rude” and unhelpful.
“We find the comments that can’t even be repeated ... deeply regrettable and lacking the most basic etiquette,” a government statement said.
Meanwhile, nearly 15,000 South Korean and US troops began a 12-day amphibious landing drill yesterday, the largest for two decades.
Codenamed Ssang Yong (“Twin Dragons”), the exercise on the South’s southeastern coast is to last until April 7 and involve around 10,000 US troops.
The US forces are to include 7,500 marines belonging to the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, based in Okinawa, Japan.
Yonhap news agency said 3,500 marines and 1,000 navy sailors would take part from South Korea.
In other developments, the UN Security Council was to hold closed-door consultations yesterday to discuss a possible condemnation of North Korea’s latest ballistic missile launches on Wednesday, UN diplomats said.
The request for a special session on North Korea came from the US, council diplomats said on condition of anonymity on Wednesday. The meeting was scheduled for 8:30pm GMT yesterday.
In Seoul, South Korean Ministry of Defense spokesman Kim Min-seok called the launches of two medium-range Rodong ballistic missiles into the sea “a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions and a grave provocation.”
Council diplomats said Washington was expected to propose a Security Council statement that would condemn the missile firings.
Additional reporting by Reuters
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not