North Korea leader's sister demands South drop 'hostile policies': KCNA
SEOUL, South Korea — The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday said it was "admirable" of the South to propose a formal end to the Korean War but demanded Seoul first drop its "hostile policies" towards Pyongyang.
Kim Yo Jong's remarks, carried by Pyongyang's official KCNA news agency, were in response to South Korean President Moon Jae-in's recent calls for declaring an official end to the 1950-53 conflict that ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the two sides technically at war for more than half a century.
In a speech at the UN General Assembly earlier this week, Moon proposed the declaration of an end to the conflict that broke out 71 years ago, stressing such an act would "make irreversible progress in denuclearisation and usher in an era of complete peace".
Kim, a key policy adviser to her brother Kim Jong Un, said it was an "admirable idea" to propose a formal end to the war but insisted the South should remove its hostile attitude first.
Making such a declaration with "double-dealing standards, prejudice and hostile policies" still in place "does not make any sense," she said.
"For the termination of the war to be declared, respect for each other should be maintained and prejudiced viewpoint, inveterate hostile policy and unequal double standards must be removed first," she said.
She added making such a declaration would "hold no water and would change nothing" under current conditions.
But the North would be willing to have talks on improving ties with Seoul if the South withdrew hostility "after breaking with the past when it often provoked us".
Kim Yo Jong last week accused Moon of "slander" after both Koreas carried out missile launches.
North Korea carried out two missile firings this month alone, one involving a long-range cruise missile and the other short-range ballistic missiles.
Moon described Pyongyang's recent launches as "provocations" when he oversaw a successful test-firing of a submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) last week, making the South one of a handful of nations with the advanced technology.
That prompted Kim Yo Jong to condemn Seoul's "illogical attitude that describes their similar behaviour as a legitimate action to support peace, and ours as a threat to peace".
Communications between the North and South have largely been cut in the aftermath of a second US-North summit in Hanoi that collapsed in February 2019 as then-president Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un couldn't agree on the terms of an agreement.
South Korean officials were briefing the White House Thursday on the outcome of their pathfinding meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Seoul has already publicized that North Korea offered talks with the United States on denuclearization and normalizing ties, a potential diplomatic opening after a year of escalating tensions over the North's nuclear and missile tests. The rival Koreas also agreed to hold a leadership summit in late April.
Top Trump administration officials were getting a chance to hear firsthand from South Korean national security director, Chung Eui-yong, who led the delegation that went to Pyongyang. — Associated Press
South Korea's defense ministry says Thursday it was "closely monitoring" a North Korean nuclear reactor site after local media reported its operations had been temporarily suspended, potentially to extract weapons-grade plutonium.
The Donga Ilbo newspaper reports earlier in the day that intelligence sources in Seoul and Washington had detected signs the five-megawatt reactor in Yongbyon had temporarily stopped operations late last month.
The suspension could be an indication that spent fuel rods are being reprocessed to extract plutonium for use in nuclear weapons, the report cited a government source as saying. — AFP
State media reports that North Korea's rubber-stamp legislature has enshrined the country's status as a nuclear weapons power in the constitution.
"The DPRK's nuclear force-building policy has been made permanent as the basic law of the state, which no one is allowed to flout with anything," leader Kim Jong Un said at a meeting of the State People's Assembly that was held Tuesday and Wednesday, the KCNA news agency says.
DPRK is the acronym for the country's formal name. — AFP
State news agency KCNA reports that North Korea announced it had built a "tactical nuclear attack submarine" as part of its effort to strengthen its naval force.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presided over the unveiling ceremony on Wednesday, saying the new sub was part of a "push forward with the nuclear weaponization of the Navy in the future", according to KCNA.
The launching of submarine No. 841, named the Hero Kim Kun Ok, "heralded the beginning of a new chapter for bolstering up the naval force of the DPRK", the KCNA report said, referring to the country by the abbreviation of its formal name. — AFP
State-controlled media reports Sunday that North Korea staged a "simulated tactical nuclear attack" drill at the weekend with mock atomic warheads attached to two long-range cruise missiles that were test-fired into the ocean.
The Korean Central News Agency says the operation early Saturday was a "counteraction drill" in response to joint military activity by US and South Korean forces that KCNA said has escalated tensions in the region.
"A firing drill for simulated tactical nuclear attack was conducted at dawn of September 2 to warn the enemies of the actual nuclear war danger," KCNA reports. — AFP
Seoul's military says North Korea fired multiple cruise missiles off its west coast on Saturday, the latest in a string of recent Pyongyang military actions.
The launches come three days after the North launched a pair of short-range ballistic missiles as part of a "tactical nuclear strike drill" prompted by the annual US-South Korean Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercises, which always infuriate the reclusive regime.
Pyongyang views such the drills as a rehearsal for invasion while the two allies say they are defensive in nature. — AFP
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