Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and vice-minister of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, has warned that North Korea will flex its military muscle in response to a new agreement between South Korea and the United States to strengthen nuclear deterrence to curb what they call a North Korean threat.
The North Korean Central News Agency reported on the 29th of this month that Kim Yo Jong said that the agreement reached by the United States and South Korea this week to support South Korea’s nuclear security, the so-called “Washington Declaration”, will only worsen the situation and reflect “heinous opposition.” North Korea hostile policy”.
In comments published by KCNA, Kim Yoo-jeong said North Korea is now convinced it must further improve its “nuclear war deterrence.”
According to the Korean Central News Agency, she said, “The more the hostile forces are crazy about nuclear war exercises, and the more they increase the deployment of strategic nuclear assets on the Korean Peninsula, the more we will increase the exercise of the right of self-defense in proportion.”
She also said that the agreement between the United States and South Korea “will only put the peace and security of the Northeast Asian region and the world at greater risk, and such behavior will never be welcomed.”
Kim Yo Jong also slammed U.S. President Joe Biden for “miscalculation and irresponsible courage” in the U.S. leader – who has previously warned that North Korea’s nuclear provocations would lead to the Kim regime’s the end.
Kim Yo Jong added that North Korea would not simply dismiss Biden’s words as “absurd remarks from an old man.”
“You know, these words are uttered by the president of our most hostile opponent, the United States. These are threatening remarks, and he should prepare for the storm that this will cause.”
Kim Yo Jong did not specify what North Korea planned to do.
The Washington Declaration, released this week by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yue and Joe Biden, backs the U.S. providing South Korea with a nuclear umbrella amid the latter’s claims of growing nervousness over North Korea’s provocative behavior. A US official told AFP this week that the announcement involved “regular deployments of strategic assets”, including the first visit by a US nuclear ballistic submarine to a South Korean port in decades.
But there are no plans to deploy U.S. nuclear weapons on South Korean soil.
Tit for Tat Upgrade
The meeting between Biden and Yoon in Washington, D.C., comes amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula. In the past year, the pace of North Korea’s show of force and joint military exercises with the United States and South Korea has risen in tit-for-tat contests.
Yonhap News Agency reported on the 29th that Kim Yo Jong, the deputy minister of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, is known for her influence on the “Kim regime’s Korean affairs”. She once called South Korean President Yi Xiyue a “fool.” “, thinking that the latter has put the security of the peninsula in crisis because of its own “incompetence.”
Since the start of 2022, North Korea has tested nearly 100 missiles, including multiple demonstrations of intercontinental ballistic missiles and a series of short-range missile launches that the North called a simulated nuclear strike against South Korea.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is widely expected to up the ante in the coming weeks and months as he continues to accelerate efforts to bolster his country’s status as a nuclear power.
North Korea has ignored years of punitive sanctions and continued to work on its banned nuclear and missile programs. North Korea has also said it would not consider giving up its weapons, and sees it as a safeguard against regime change attempts by the hostile United States and its ally South Korea.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which oversees inter-Korean internal affairs, criticized Kim Yo Jong’s remarks, saying her “rude remarks” showed the “low level” of the North Korean regime, Yonhap news agency reported.
