Powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un rejects outreach by South

Los Angeles Times

5 hours ago

SEOUL — The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un rebuffed overtures by South Korea's new liberal government, saying Monday that Pyongyang has no interest in talks with Seoul no matter what proposal its rival offers.
Kim Yo Jong's comments suggest again that North Korea, now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia, has no intentions of returning to diplomacy with South Korea and the U.S. anytime soon. But experts said North Korea could change course if it thinks it cannot maintain the same close and fruitful ties with Moscow when the Russia-Ukraine war nears an end.
'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 a reason to meet nor an issue to be discussed' between the Koreas, Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media.
It is North Korea's first official statement on the government of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, which took office in early June. In an effort to improve badly frayed ties with North Korea, Lee's government has halted anti-Pyongyang frontline loudspeaker broadcasts, taken steps to ban activists from flying balloons with propaganda leaflets across the border and repatriated North Koreans who drifted south in wooden boats months earlier.
Kim Yo Jong called such steps 'sincere efforts' by Lee's government to develop ties. But she said the new government in Seoul won't be much different from its predecessors, citing what it calls a 'blind trust' in the military alliance with the U.S. and attempts to 'stand in confrontation' with North Korea. She mentioned the upcoming summertime South Korea-U.S. military drills, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.
North Korea has been shunning talks with South Korea and the U.S. since leader Kim Jong Un's high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with President Trump fell apart in 2019 due to wrangling over international sanctions. North Korea has since focused on building more powerful nuclear weapons.
The North now prioritizes cooperation with Russia by sending troops and conventional weapons to support its war against Ukraine, probably in return for economic and military assistance. The South, the U.S. and others say Russia may even give Pyongyang sensitive technologies that can enhance its nuclear and missile programs.
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. But North Korea hasn't publicly responded to Trump's overture.
In early 2024, Kim Jong Un ordered the rewriting of the constitution to remove the long-running state goal of a peaceful Korean unification and to cement South Korea as an 'invariable principal enemy.' That caught many foreign experts by surprise because it was seen as eliminating the idea of shared statehood between the war-divided Koreas and breaking with his predecessors' long-cherished dreams of peacefully achieving a unified Korea on the North's terms.
Many experts say Kim Jong Un probably aims to guard against South Korean cultural influence and bolster his family's dynastic rule. Others say he wants legal room to potentially use his nuclear weapons against South Korea by casting it as a foreign enemy state, not a partner for potential unification that shares a sense of national homogeneity.
Kim writes for the Associated Press.