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Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, called the offer “the height of absurdity” and warned that the premise that North Korea will negotiate on its nuclear program is false.
The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday criticized Seoul’s offer of economic aid in exchange for the communist country’s denuclearization as “the height of absurdity” and ruled out opening negotiations.
His words respond to the plan presented this week by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to offer food, energy and infrastructure to North Korea if it abandons its nuclear weapons program.
Analysts had already anticipated the proposal’s slim chance of success given that Pyongyang invests much of its wealth in its military program and has repeatedly made it clear that it will not accept such a trade.
Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, called the offer “the height of absurdity” and warned that the premise that North Korea will negotiate on its nuclear program is false.
“Thinking that the plan to exchange ‘economic cooperation’ for our honor, our nuclear weapons, is Yoon’s big dream, hope and plan, we realize that it is really simple and still childish,” he said in a statement. published by the official agency KCNA.
“It has become clear to us that we will not sit face to face with him,” he added, accusing South Korea of recycling proposals already rejected by North Korea. “Nobody trades their fate for cornbread,” he warned.
South Korea’s presidency said it “deeply regrets” Kim Yo Jong’s “disrespectful” comments, but said the offer still stands.
“North Korea’s attitude does not in any way help the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula or its own future, and only promotes isolation,” it said in a statement.
“Ready to deploy” nuclear force
Last week, Pyongyang threatened “deadly” retaliation against South Korea, which it holds responsible for a recent Covid-19 outbreak on its soil.
Kim Jong Un said in July that his country was “ready to deploy” its nuclear deterrent force in the event of a military confrontation with the United States and South Korea. On Wednesday, Pyongyang fired two cruise missiles.
Cheong Seong-chang, director of the Center for North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute, said Kim Yo Jong’s remarks “clearly reaffirm” that Pyongyang will never give up its nuclear weapons and that Seoul should review its approach to denuclearization.
“The weight of the North Korean nuclear threat that South Korea has to live with has already exceeded the level it can bear,” he said.
The personal nature of Kim Yo Jong’s attack on Yoon Suk-yeol shows that relations are likely to be “very difficult” during the five-year term of the new South Korean president, Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, told AFP.
Though noted for his tough stances against the communist regime before his election in March, Yoon said Wednesday that his administration will not seek to acquire nuclear deterrent capabilities.
North Korea has deployed a record number of weapons tests this year, including launching an intercontinental ballistic missile at full range for the first time since 2017.
The United States and South Korea have warned that Pyongyang is preparing the seventh nuclear test in its history.
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