North Korea has no interest in pursuing dialogue with the South, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s powerful sister Kim Yo-jong said yesterday, dismissing a new president in Seoul who has vowed to mend ties.
Since his election last month, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has broken with his predecessor’s hawkish tone on the North and halted loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border — begun in response to a barrage of trash-filled North Korean balloons.
North Korea has ended its own propaganda broadcasts, which had boomed strange and eerie noises into the South.
Photo: AFP / KCNA via KNS
However, such gestures do not mean Seoul should expect a thawing of icy ties, Kim Yo-jong said in an English dispatch carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
“If the ROK ... expected that it could reverse all the results it had made with a few sentimental words, nothing is more serious miscalculation than it,” she said, referring to South Korea by its official name.
“We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither the reason to meet nor the issue to be discussed with the ROK,” she added.
“The DPRK-ROK relations have irreversibly gone beyond the time zone of the concept of homogeneous,” she said, using the North’s official acronym.
Kim Yo-jong called Lee’s steps “sincere efforts” to develop ties, but said the new government still plots to “stand in confrontation” with North Korea.
She mentioned the upcoming summertime South Korea-US military drills, which the North views as an invasion rehearsal.
Lee said it was important to restore trust between the Koreas, as he met South Korean Minister of Unification Chung Dong-young and asked about his thought on Pyongyang’s latest statement.
Chung later told reporters that he intended to propose to Lee that South Korea and the US “adjust” their military exercises.
Chung’s remarks, which could mean scaling back South Korea-US training as a way to get North Korea to return to talks, is likely to invite strong criticism from conservatives, who support expanded South Korea-US training to cope with North Korea’s advancing nuclear program.
Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said that Kim Yo-jong’s statement underscored Pyongyang’s entrenched anti-South stance.
“It declares that its hostile perception towards the South has become irreversible,” he said.
The two countries technically remain at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
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