North Korea has rejected the possibility of dialogue with South Korea amid Seoul’s outreach efforts under its new left-leaning President.
In a statement issued by state-run media, Kim Yo Jong, North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister, dismissed South Korean President, Lee Jae-myung’s efforts to mend ties with Pyongyang, including the cessation of loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the tense inter-Korean border.
Kim, who oversees propaganda operations within the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, called Lee’s decision to halt the broadcasts a “reversible turning back of what they should not have done in the first place.”
She said that if South Korea “expected that it could reverse all the results it had made with a few sentimental words,” nothing could be a “more serious miscalculation.”
Kim also accused the Lee administration of “spinning a daydream” after its Unification Minister, Chung Dong-young, earlier this month expressed support for Kim Jong Un being invited to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea in October.
The North Korean Leader’s sister asserted that the Lee administration’s “blind trust” in South Korea’s security alliance with the United States and “attempt to stand in confrontation” with Pyongyang are little different from the policies of the previous conservative administration of Yoon Suk-yeol.
She mentioned the upcoming summertime South Korea-US military drills, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal
“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.”
Kim Yo Jong
Kim used the acronym for South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.
It’s North Korea’s first official statement on the government of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, which took office in early June with a promise to improve badly frayed ties with North Korea.
Lee, who took office last month following Yoon’s removal over a short-lived declaration of martial law, has expressed his desire to improve relations between the divided Koreas, which have been technically at war since the 1950-1953 Korean War.
Lee’s left-leaning Democratic Party and its predecessors have traditionally favoured closer ties with North Korea, in comparison with Yoon’s conservative People Power Party and its precursors.
Lee’s government has halted anti-Pyongyang frontline loudspeaker broadcasts, taken steps to ban activists from flying balloons with propaganda leaflets across the border.
Earlier this month, South Korea announced that it repatriated six North Koreans who had been rescued at sea earlier this year after their vessels drifted across the de facto maritime border.
North Korea has shunned talks with South Korea and the US since leader Kim Jong Un’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019 due to wrangling over international sanctions.
North Korea has since focused on building more powerful nuclear weapons targeting its rivals and declared a hostile “two-state” system on the Korean Peninsula to terminate relations with South Korea.
North Korea Holding Out For South Korea To Abandon US Alliance
Moon Seong Mook, an Analyst for the Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, opined that Kim Yo Jong’s statement shows North Korea is holding out for South Korea to abandon the US alliance.
Moon stated that Kim likely sees little upside in engaging with the South since it cannot restart economic projects that previously benefited the North as long as international sanctions remain in place.
Also, Leif-Eric Easley, Professor of International studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said that Kim Yo Jong’s statement had a domestic audience.
“Kim Yo Jong’s comments are an effort to advance national pride by portraying North Korea in a superior position, despite its economic struggles and international pariah status.
“She also seeks to justify Pyongyang’s weapons programs and divide Seoul and Washington by criticizing upcoming military exercises.”
Leif Eric Presley
North Korea is now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia. North Korea built cooperation with Russia, sending troops and conventional weapons to support its war in Ukraine, and likely receiving economic assistance in return.
Since beginning his second term in January, Trump has repeatedly boasted of his personal ties with Kim Jong Un and expressed intent to resume diplomacy with him. However, North Korea hasn’t publicly responded to Trump’s overture.
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