Kim Jong Un's sister rejects South Korea president's attempt to improve ties

The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Kim Yo Jong, has rejected attempts at reconciliation by South Korea’s new government.

“If South Korea expects to reverse all the consequences of (its actions) with a few sentimental words, there could be no greater miscalculation than that,” Kim Yo Jong, who is also a senior official in North Korea’s ruling party, said in a press statement on Jul. 28.

“Not the work worthy of appreciation”

This marks the North’s first official statement on newly elected South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s administration since Lee took office on Jun. 4, following the ousting of Yoon Suk Yeol over a short-lived declaration of martial law.

Promising to improve strained ties between the Koreas, Lee has ceased loudspeaker broadcasts of anti-North Korean messages on the frontlines and stopped anti-Pyongyang activists from disseminating propaganda leaflets across the border, Al Jazeera reported.

South Korea also announced that it returned six North Koreans to their country, after their boat drifted past the de facto maritime border and they repeatedly voiced their desire to return home.

However, in her statement, Kim called Lee’s attempts “nothing but a reversible turning back of what they should not have done in the first place”.

“In other words, it is not the work worthy of appreciation,” she added.

“Blind trust” in the U.S.

Kim went on to say that, despite Lee’s plans to ease tensions, the “blind trust” his administration has in its alliance with the U.S. and its confrontational stance towards North Korea is no different from its predecessors.

Reuters reported that the day before, Lee had said that South Korea would work to strengthen its alliance with the U.S., which he described as “sealed in blood”, while commemorating the anniversary of the Korean Armistice Agreement that put an end to the Korean War’s hostilities.

His government is also racing to secure a trade deal with the U.S. ahead of the Aug. 1 deadline, hoping to avoid the worst of the punitive tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened.

Kim noted the annual joint military drills of “aggressive nature” held between South Korea and the U.S., which included a simulated river-crossing close to the North Korean border this year.

“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 South Korea.”

South Korea will persevere

Compared with Yoon’s conservative People Power Party, Lee’s liberal Democratic Party and its previous administrations have traditionally sought to build ties with North Korea.

In response to Kim’s statement, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said that it will persevere in seeking reconciliation with North Korea and pursuing “a version of peaceful coexistence on the Korean Peninsula”.

“(Kim’s) statement suggests that North Korean authorities are paying close attention to the Lee Jae Myung administration’s policy approach toward the North,” the ministry’s spokesperson Koo Byoung Sam told reporters the same day.

Asked about the ministry’s stance towards the North, Koo noted, “The North holds a dual status – while it poses a threat to our national security, it is also a key partner in our efforts to achieve peaceful unification through dialogue and cooperation.”

Top image via JORGE SILVA / POOL / AFP and 이재명/Instagram