Kim Yo Jong threatens S. Korea with military action
Powerful sister of Kim Jong Un lashes out over anti-Pyongyang leaflets
SEOUL, South Korea — The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un threatened military action against South Korea on Saturday over declining bilateral relations and its inability to stop activists from floating anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.
Describing South Korea as an “enemy,” Kim Yo Jong repeated an earlier threat she had made by saying Seoul will soon witness the collapse of a “useless” interKorean liaison office in the border town of Kaesong.
Kim, who is first vice department director of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Committee, said she would leave it to North Korea’s military leaders to carry out the next step of retaliation against the South.
“By exercising my power authorized by the supreme leader, our party and the state, I gave an instruction to the arms of the department in charge of the affairs with enemy to decisively carry out the next action,” she said in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
“If I drop a hint of our next plan the (South Korean) authorities are anxious about, the right to taking the next action against the enemy will be entrusted to the General Staff of our army,” she said. “Our army, too, will determine something for cooling down our people’s resentment and surely carry out it, I believe.”
Kim’s harsh rhetoric demonstrates her elevated status in North Korea’s leadership as the most powerful woman in the country. State media recently confirmed that she is now in charge of relations with South Korea.
The liaison office in Kaesong, closed since January due to coronavirus, was set up after one of the main agreements reached in three summits between Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in in 2018.