Kim Yo Jong denies claims that Pyongyang has removed propaganda-blaring loudspeakers at the inter-Korean border.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister has accused South Korea of misleading the public about ties between the Koreas, denying claims that Pyongyang removed some propaganda-blaring loudspeakers from their shared border.
In a statement carried by the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency on Thursday, Kim Yo Jong blasted the claim by South Korea’s military as an “unfounded unilateral supposition and a red herring.”
“We have never removed loudspeakers installed on the border area and are not willing to remove them,” Kim said.
Kim accused Seoul of “building up the public opinion while embellishing their new policy” towards Pyongyang.
“It is their foolish calculation that if they manage to make us respond to their actions, it would be good, and if not, their actions will at least reflect their ‘efforts for detente’ and they will be able to shift the responsibility for the escalation of tensions onto the DPRK and win the support of the world,” Kim said, using the acronym of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Such a “trick” is nothing but a “pipedream” and “does not arouse our interest at all,” Kim added.
“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,” she said, using the acronym of South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.
“The shabby deceptive farce is no longer attractive.”
In a statement quoted by local media, South Korea’s Ministry of Unification did not directly address Kim’s claims, but said it would continue its efforts toward the “normalisation” and “stabilisation” of inter-Korean ties.
Kim’s broadside comes after South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Saturday that Pyongyang had removed some of the loudspeakers, days after the South Korean side took down similar speakers on its side of the border.
North Korea is highly sensitive to criticism of the ruling Kim family, which has ruled the isolated state with iron first for nearly eight decades and is treated with God-like reverence in official commentary.
Since the inauguration of left-leaning South Korean President Lee Jae-myung in June, Seoul has been seeking rapprochement with its reclusive neighbour, after years of elevated tensions between the Koreas under the conservative ex-president Yoon Suk-yeol.
But Kim Yo Jong, who oversees the propaganda operations of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, has repeatedly shot down the possibility of reconciliation between the sides.
In a scathing dismissal of Lee’s rapprochement efforts last month, Kim said there was no “more serious miscalculation” than believing that relations could be repaired “with a few sentimental words.”
In her remarks on Thursday, Kim also poured scorn on South Korean media reports suggesting that Pyongyang could use Friday’s summit between United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to communicate with Washington.
“This is a typical proof that the ROK is having a false dream,” she said.
“If a dream is dreamed very often, it will be an empty one, and so many suppositions will lead to so many contradictions that will not be solved. Why should we send a message to the US side.”
