North Korea rejects South's olive branch, says it has ‘no interest' in rapprochement

Japan Times

2 days ago

The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has thrown cold water on the chances of rapprochement with Seoul in the regime's first response to peace overtures by new South Korean President Lee Jae Myung.
'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 the ROK,' Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency, referring to the South by the abbreviation of its official name, the Republic of Korea.
South Korea's Lee, who took office less than two months ago, pledged in his inauguration speech to 'deter nuclear threats and military provocations while keeping open channels of dialogue to establish peace on the Korean Peninsula.'
Lee has since rolled back years of hard-line policies toward the North under his ousted successor, Yoon Suk Yeol. He has suspended military propaganda loudspeakers along the inter-Korean border, authorized a resumption of humanitarian outreach by several nongovernmental organizations and urged civic groups to stop launching anti-North Korean leaflets that have infuriated the Kim regime.
Lee's administration has also reportedly halted decades-old radio and television broadcasts run by the country's spy agency that defectors say were a key source of information on the outside world.
However, Pyongyang — which last year designated Seoul its 'principal enemy' and ruled out reunification, repeatedly calling South Korea a 'hostile state' — appeared unimpressed by the moves.
'No matter how desperately the Lee Jae Myung government may ... pretend they do all sorts of righteous things to attract our attention and receive international attention, there can be no change in our state's understanding of the enemy and they can not turn back the hands of the clock of the history which has radically changed the character of the DPRK-ROK relations,' Kim Yo Jong said, also using the abbreviation for the North's formal names, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
She said that while the Lee government 'made such sweet remarks as defusing tension on the Korean peninsula and improving the DPRK-ROK relations ... their blind trust to the ROK-U.S. alliance and their attempt to stand in confrontation' with the North has highlighted that their policies are 'little short of their predecessor's.'
"If the ROK ... expected that it could reverse all the results it had made with a few sentimental words, nothing is more serious miscalculation than it," Kim added.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a news conference to mark his first 30 days in office at the Blue House in Seoul on July 3. |
POOL / VIA AFP-JIJI
South Korea's Presidential Office said in response Monday that it would continue to "consistently take actions for peace," the Yonhap news agency reported, with the Unification Ministry in Seoul noting that the words out of Pyongyang had highlighted the challenge of improving inter-Korean ties.
Kim also tamped down speculation that her brother could attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit scheduled for Oct. 31 to Nov. 1 in Gyeongju, South Korea, saying that Seoul was 'spinning a daydream' with the idea.
Unification Minister Chung Dong-young had signaled during a confirmation hearing earlier this month that Seoul would make every effort to turn the APEC meeting into a platform for peace on the Korean Peninsula and is open to the idea of the North Korean leader attending, local media reported.
Chung previously attempted to invite then-North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the current leader's late father, to the 2005 APEC Summit in Busan.
"Given the high possibility of U.S. President Donald Trump attending, Kim Jong Un's participation could significantly increase the chances of a Pyongyang-Washington summit," Chung was quoted as saying.
Trump is widely expected to attend the APEC summit, saying in late March that his administration had been in touch with Kim and that the two sides could engage each other 'at some point.'
But it's unclear if North Korea is even interested in returning to talks with both the South or the U.S. in the first place — especially as Pyongyang has ramped up military and economic ties with Russia.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the Fatherland Liberation War Martyrs Cemetery in Pyongyang for an event, in this picture released Sunday. |
KCNA / via REUTERS
In exchange for deploying some 14,000 North Korean troops to Russia's Kursk region to dislodge Ukrainian forces that had taken it over last year, Pyongyang is believed to have received a much-needed lifeline in the form of fuel, food and access to advanced military equipment that circumvents crushing U.N. sanctions.
Considering this, as well as his prioritization of developing his nuclear weapons and missile programs, Kim Jong Un is in a vastly different position than in 2019, when summit diplomacy between the U.S. and North Korea broke down.
The country is now estimated to have assembled around 50 nuclear warheads, possess enough fissile material to produce up to 40 more and is accelerating the production of even more fissile material, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Last November, Kim called for a 'limitless' expansion of his country's military nuclear program. In January, he used a key ruling party meeting to announce North Korea's 'toughest' ever strategy to counter the United States, though details of that strategy were scant.
The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a formal peace treaty. The United States keeps about 28,000 troops in South Korea as a way of deterring and defending its key Asian ally from nuclear-armed North Korea.