Sister of North Korean leader Kim rejects outreach by South's new president
Kim Yo Jong's comments suggest again that North Korea, now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia, has no intentions of returning to diplomacy with South Korea and the US anytime soon.
But experts said North Korea could change its course if it thinks it cannot maintain the same booming ties with Russia when the Russia-Ukraine war nears an end.
'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 a reason to meet nor an issue to be discussed with' South Korea, Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media.
It's North Korea's first official statement on the government of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, which took office in early June.
In an effort to improve badly frayed ties with North Korea, Lee's government has halted anti-Pyongyang frontline loudspeaker broadcasts, taken steps to ban activists from flying balloons with propaganda leaflets across the border and repatriated North Koreans who were drifted south in wooden boats months earlier.
Kim Yo Jong called such steps 'sincere efforts' by Lee's government to develop ties. But she said the Lee government won't be much different from its predecessors, citing what it calls 'their blind trust' to the military alliance with the U.S. and attempt to 'stand in confrontation' with North Korea.
She mentioned the upcoming summertime South Korea-U.S. military drills, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.
North Korea has been shunning talks with South Korea and the U.S. since leader Kim Jong Un's high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019 due to wrangling over international sanctions. North Korea has since focused on building more powerful nuclear weapons targeting its rivals.
North Korea now prioritizes cooperation with Russia by sending troops and conventional weapons to support its war against Ukraine, likely in return for economic and military assistance. South Korea, the U.S. and others say Russia may even give North Korea sensitive technologies that can enhance its nuclear and missile programs.
Since beginning his second term in January, Trump has repeatedly boasted of his personal ties with Kim Jong Un and expressed intent to resume diplomacy with him. But North Korea hasn't publicly responded to Trump's overture.
In early 2024, Kim Jong Un ordered the rewriting of the constitution to remove the long-running state goal of a peaceful Korean unification and cement South Korea as an 'invariable principal enemy.'
That caught many foreign experts by surprise because it was seen as eliminating the idea of shared statehood between the war-divided Koreas and breaking away with his predecessors' long-cherished dreams of peacefully achieving a unified Korea on the North's terms.
Many experts say Kim likely aims to guard against South Korean cultural influence and bolster his family's dynastic rule. Others say Kim wants legal room to use his nuclear weapons against South Korea by making it as a foreign enemy state, not a partner for potential unification which shares a sense of national homogeneity.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
an hour ago
- First Post
South Korea removes anti-North Korean loudspeakers on border as President Lee hopes for mending ties
Shortly after he took office in June, Lee's administration switched off propaganda broadcasts criticising the North Korean regime as it looks to revive stalled dialogue with its neighbour. read more South Korean soldiers work on a loudspeaker that is set up for propaganda broadcasts during a military drill near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in Paju, South Korea, in this handout picture provided by the Defense Ministry and released on June 9, 2024. Reuters South Korean authorities began removing on Monday loudspeakers blaring anti-North Korea broadcasts along the country's border, Seoul's defence ministry said, as the new government of President Lee Jae Myung seeks to ease tensions with Pyongyang. Shortly after he took office in June, Lee's administration switched off propaganda broadcasts criticising the North Korean regime as it looks to revive stalled dialogue with its neighbour. But North Korea recently rebuffed the overtures and said it had no interest in talking to South Korea. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The countries remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean war ended in a truce and relations have deteriorated in the last few years. South Korea's dismantling of the loudspeakers from Monday is just a 'practical measure to help ease tensions between the South and the North,' the ministry said in a statement on Monday.
Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
Home by home, Russia is selling occupied Ukraine to Russians
Photographs posted on the official Telegram channel of the Mariupol City Council showing the Clock House before and after the bombings. In a brochure, the property developer touts the 'majestic style" of the building's architecture and its prime location just a 15-minute walk from the sea, adding a caveat: It was damaged during 'military events." The building that once stood there was in fact demolished by developers after Russia conquered Mariupol in a brutal onslaught that killed thousands of people and devastated the Ukrainian port city's housing stock. Residents of the Clock House counted themselves lucky to survive, but are now excluded from the redevelopment of the building, which has been sold largely to newcomers from Russia. 'We, the previous owners, don't have the right to be there," said Elena Pudak, whose mother owned a spacious apartment in the building but now lives in Germany. Once a landmark of Mariupol's unique heritage, the Clock House now stands as a monument to Russia's transformation of the city for both profit and its own political designs. Across occupied territory, Russia-backed authorities have seized thousands of apartments after declaring them 'ownerless," leaving the Ukrainians who fled faced with growing barriers to return and prove their ownership or claim compensation. Newcomers from Russia, meanwhile, enjoy a range of perks, such as 2% mortgage rates on new building developments. The strategy of replacing the people who once lived in conquered territories with ethnic Russians is one that Moscow has long pursued. The eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, for example, was flooded with Russians in the 1930s as the Soviet Union industrialized the region while starving millions of Ukrainian peasants to death in what the Ukrainian government and many historians consider a genocide. Mariupol is a symbol of Russian brutality and Ukrainian resistance during a siege in the early weeks of the war that destroyed swaths of the city, including the smoke-billowing Azovstal steel works. Real-estate agents tout the city's newly-clean air. Russia conquered Mariupol in a brutal onslaught that killed thousands of people and devastated the Ukrainian port city's housing displacement and destruction has thrown open Mariupol's real-estate market. One new arrival, a Russian woman from Siberia, said she was dazzled by the bright orange of the sun when she first visited last year. She bought an apartment there needing only minor repairs and intends to retire there, fulfilling her husband's dream of living by the sea. For now, she said she would rent it out to a tenant—a woman from Moscow who now lives and works in Mariupol. Oleksandr Nosochenko, a former Mariupol resident, said a Russian military service member had taken over his summer cottage by the seaside on the city's outskirts. As a man of military age, Nosochenko couldn't make the journey back to Mariupol to claim compensation himself, and his wife, who had endured Russia's siege of the city, refused to return there on principle. The Clock House, built in the 1950s, was one of the most coveted addresses in what had been a thriving city. A new clock was installed during repairs to the building's roof and facade in 2021, with a light show that then-mayor Vadym Boychenko hailed as a symbol of 'the era of Mariupol's rebirth." Months later, residents found themselves huddling in the basement as Russian forces besieged the city. In March 2022, a missile tore a hole in the Clock House, killing several residents. 'That's when we realized we had nowhere to go back to," said Pudak, who had escaped the city with her husband and three children days before, leaving the keys to her mother's apartment with a neighbor. Mass displacement and destruction threw open the real-estate market. While workers started clearing rubble, realtors snapped up property on the cheap from fleeing residents. Residents of the Clock House scattered across Ukraine, Russia and Europe, but some remained in the building's basement until a leak appeared in the summer. Despite the damage, residents hoped the building's historic value would ensure its preservation. In a master plan for Mariupol's redevelopment approved by Putin in 2022, the Clock House was marked for restoration. The bulldozers arrived toward the end of 2022. Residents watched helplessly as the building was torn down. Three diggers broke in the process, according to the head of the residents association Maria Tikhovskaya. 'The house itself was fighting the demolition," she said in a video posted online. Satellite images show most of the building had been leveled by early 2023. Still, residents expected to receive apartments in the new building. A 2022 decree entitled them to be rehoused on the site of their former home. Unknown to them, however, the building had been allocated for redevelopment by a subsidiary of a company called Roskapstroy, which is owned by Russia's construction ministry. The reality began to sink in when they saw the floor plans and computer generated images of the new building on a Telegram channel that popped up in July 2023. It was several stories higher than the building they knew, and had a completely different layout. Instead of spacious two-bedroom apartments, it had been subdivided mainly into studios. Residents attempted to contact the developer, RKS Development, but were ignored. The developer instead opened a sales office near the site. Among the buyers was a real-estate agent from Mariupol, who reserved three apartments in the new Clock House. 'There was a lot of interest," said the 28-year-old. Most of the other buyers he encountered were from Russia, he said. As for the former residents, he knew of their grievances but had little sympathy. If they wanted to keep living there, they could have put down a deposit like everyone else, he said. Nevermind that the price was about three times what residents say they were offered in compensation for their apartments. 'It's barely enough to buy a burial plot," said one resident. Even if they could have afforded it, many former residents objected on principle: Why should they pay the price for the destruction of Mariupol? Within a week, the apartments had sold out, the real-estate agent said. The bulk of the planned construction cost of 850 million Russian rubles, or around $10.5 million, was covered by future owners, according to a project disclosure statement from the developer. The U.S. sanctioned Roskapstroy and its subsidiaries for operating in occupied Mariupol later in 2023. The developer didn't respond to a request for comment. The central avenue of Mariupol in the early months of the war, as Russian troops intensified a campaign that destroyed swaths of the a strategic port city, is a symbol of Russian brutality and Ukrainian resistance during a siege in the early weeks of the war. As construction work began, residents mobilized, appealing to official bodies in the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, the Russian name for the government it installed in eastern Ukraine. In response, they were told the law had changed: Residents were no longer entitled to be rehoused on the site of their former homes, but anywhere within the city limits. Meanwhile, Elena Pudak's mother attempted to travel back to Mariupol to claim compensation for her apartment. She was denied entry at Russia's Sheremetyevo airport—the sole legal entry point for Ukrainians seeking to return to occupied territories. There was no explanation, but Pudak suspects the authorities are trying to keep people with property claims out. With dwindling options, Clock House residents filed a lawsuit against the Donetsk People's Republic, arguing that their rights as newly minted citizens of Russia had been violated. In a letter addressed to Putin, they pleaded their case. There was no response, and late last year, the court ruled against them.
New Indian Express
an hour ago
- New Indian Express
South Korea begins removing border propaganda speakers in conciliatory gesture toward North
SEOUL: South Korea's military said Monday it had begun removing loudspeakers along its border with rival North Korea in a move aimed at reducing tensions. The speakers had previously been used to blast anti-North Korean propaganda across the border, but the South's new liberal government halted the broadcasts in June in a conciliatory gesture as it looks to rebuild trust and revive dialogue with Pyongyang, which has largely cut off cooperation with the South in recent years. South Korea's Defense Ministry said the physical removal of the loudspeakers from the border was another 'practical measure' aimed at easing tensions between the war-divided Koreas and that it does not affect the South's military readiness. Lee Kyung-ho, a spokesperson for the ministry, didn't share specific details on how the removed loudspeakers will be stored or whether they could be quickly redeployed to the border if tensions flare again between the Koreas. There were no discussions between the two militaries ahead of the South's decision to remove the speakers, Lee said during a briefing. North Korea, which is extremely sensitive to any outside criticism of its authoritarian leadership and its third-generation ruler, Kim Jong Un, didn't immediately comment on the South Korean step. The South's previous conservative government resumed the daily loudspeaker broadcasts in June last year following a yearslong pause in retaliation for North Korea flying trash-laden balloons toward the South in a psychological warfare campaign. The speakers blasted propaganda messages and K-pop songs, a playlist clearly designed to strike a nerve in Pyongyang, where Kim's government has been intensifying a campaign to eliminate the influence of South Korean pop culture and language among the population in a bid to strengthen his family's dynastic rule. The Cold War-style psychological warfare campaigns further heightened tensions already inflamed by North Korea's advancing nuclear program and South Korean efforts to expand joint military exercises with the United States and their trilateral security cooperation with Japan. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, a liberal who took office in June after winning an early election to replace ousted conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, has vowed to improve relations with Pyongyang, which reacted furiously to Yoon's hard-line policies and shunned dialogue. But Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of the North Korean leader, rebuffed overtures by Lee's government last week, saying that Seoul's 'blind trust' in the country's alliance with the U.S. and hostility toward North Korea make it no different from its conservative predecessor. Her comments implied that North Korea — now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia over the war in Ukraine – feels no urgency to resume diplomacy with Seoul and Washington anytime soon.
