North Korea not interested in talks with Seoul, Kim Jong-un's sister says
'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 with the ROK,' Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the ruling party's central committee, said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency. ROK is the acronym for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.
Kim Yo-jong's remarks referred to Lee's efforts to thaw inter-Korean ties and restore suspended dialogue channels with the North. The Lee administration has halted anti-Pyongyang loudspeaker broadcasts along the border and repatriated six North Korean fishermen via the maritime border in the East Sea, after they had drifted into southern waters. It also asked South Korean family members of those abducted by the North to stop flying balloons filled with 'anti-Pyongyang' leaflets to the North.
But the powerful sister brushed off such efforts and called the decision to halt the loudspeaker broadcasts a 'reversible turning back of what they should not have done in the first place.' She added that if Seoul expected it could reverse all its actions 'with a few sentimental words,' it would be a 'serious miscalculation.'
Kim Yo-jong also lambasted Lee by saying that he 'is no different from his predecessor in blindly adhering to the South Korea-US alliance' and pursuing confrontation with the North.
On Seoul's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young's recent expression of hopes for Kim Jong-un's participation in the APEC summit in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, scheduled for October, the North Korean leader's sister called the move delusional.
In response, South Korea's presidential office said in a statement that Seoul will continue to take necessary actions to ensure a Korean Peninsula free of hostility. This is aligned with the Lee administration's stance and goal to achieve peace without conflict, it added.
Seoul's Unification Ministry interpreted Kim's remarks as a sign that Pyongyang is 'closely monitoring' the Lee administration's North Korea policy, the ministry's spokesperson, Koo Byoung-sam, told a press briefing. It also reflects the reality of 'the high walls of distrust' existing between the two Koreas.
"The government will not waver due to each and every reaction from North Korea but will calmly and consistently pursue efforts to forge inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation and realize mutual peace on the Korean Peninsula," Koo said.
Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, echoed the Unification Ministry's interpretation, saying that Kim's remarks reaffirmed the North's view of seeing inter-Korean ties as those between "two states hostile to each other.' It is also an intent to put pressure on the South and draw a reaction from Seoul, only 50 days after the launch of the new administration and almost immediately after Unification Minister Chung Dong-young was appointed last week.
Kim Yo-jong's statement released Monday marks Pyongyang's first official statement on the Lee Jae Myung administration.
In late 2023, Kim Jong-un defined inter-Korean ties as "two states hostile to each other, a shift from its previous unification goals and a turn towards a policy to view the South as a separate, hostile state.
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