Kim Yo-jong’s statement on Sunday came amid heightened tensions between Korean rivals over a wave of weapons tests in the north this year, including the first intercontinental ballistic missile launch in more than four years. The ICBM test that broke North Korea’s four-year moratorium on major arms tests was a huge embarrassment for liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who pushed hard for greater reconciliation and a peaceful solution. North Korea nuclear power plant. crisis. During a visit to the country’s strategic missile command on Friday, South Korean Defense Minister Suh Wook said his country had the capability and preparedness to launch precision strikes on North Korea if it detected that the North intended to launch missiles at it. her neighbor. Seoul has long maintained such a precautionary military strategy to counter North Korea’s growing missile and nuclear threats, but it was still very unusual for a senior Seoul-led Seoul official to discuss such a possibility in public. On Sunday, Kim Yo-jong delivered terrible rhetoric to Suh and threats against Seoul. “The irrational and scum dare to report a pre-emptive strike on a nuclear-armed state,” Kim Yo-jong said in a statement broadcast by state media. “South Korea could face a serious threat due to the reckless statements of its Secretary of Defense.” “South Korea must be disciplined if it is to prevent a catastrophe,” he added. Kim Yo-jong, a senior official in the ruling Labor Party of the North, is in charge of relations with Seoul and Washington. South Korea’s spy agency says it is the No. 2 North Korean official behind her brother. Pak Yong Chun, secretary of the Labor Party Central Committee, warned that “any slight misjudgment and misrepresentation that upsets the other party in the current situation” could lead to “a dangerous conflict and a full-blown war.” Pack said North Korea “will relentlessly direct military force to destroy key targets in Seoul and the South Korean military” if South Korea launches a pre-emptive strike on North Korea. Relations between the Koreans stalled for a while in 2018 after North Korea suddenly approached South Korea and the United States and expressed its willingness to put its nuclear program on the negotiating table. At the time, Kim Yo-jong was visiting South Korea to attend the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics and conveying her brother Moon’s invitation to visit the North. Kim Jong Un and Moon finally met three times in 2018. However, North Korea turned colder on the Moon and severed ties with South Korea after the collapse of its wider diplomacy with the United States in 2019 over disagreements over US economic sanctions on the North. The United States has urged North Korea to return to the talks unconditionally, but the North has rejected such a proposal, saying the United States must first stop its hostility to it. Kim Jong Un has repeatedly promised to expand his nuclear arsenal as the diplomatic stalemate with Washington continues. Some experts say recent missile tests on the North have been aimed at refining its weapons technology, boosting its leverage in future negotiations with the United States and securing stronger domestic credibility. They say North Korea could soon launch another ICBM launch, a satellite-launched rocket launch or a nuclear test in the coming weeks.
