SEOUL: North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong, powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un said South Korea’s President should “shut his mouth” after he reiterated that his country was willing to provide economic aid in return for nuclear disarmament. Her comments mark first time a senior North Korean official has commented directly on what South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has called an “audacious” plan first proposed in May and which he talked about again at a news conference to mark his first 100 days in office.

“It would have been more favourable for his image to shut his mouth, rather than talking nonsense as he had nothing better to say,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement released by state news agency KCNA, calling Yoon “really simple and still childish” to think that he could trade economic cooperation for North’s honour and nuclear weapons. “No one barters its destiny for corn cake,” she added. South Korea’s Unification Minister, who handles relations with the North, called Kim’s comments “very disrespectful and indecent.” While Yoon has said he is willing to provide phased economic aid to North Korea if it ended nuclear weapons development and began denuclearisation, he has also pushed to increase South Korea’s military deterrence against North Korea. South Korea has resumed long-suspended joint drills with United States, including major field exercises due to begin next week. Kim Yo Jong has become a vocal critic of South Korea in recent years, seen by some experts as playing “bad cop” to her brother’s more subdued statements. Friday’s statement is her harshest personal attack on Yoon to date, but this month she also released a profanity-laced tirade that blamed South for a Covid-19 outbreak in North and threatened “deadly retaliation” if there were further occurrences.

Published in The Daily National Courier, August, 20 2022

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