Kim Yo-jong blasts South, defense minister following comments

North Korea

Published: 03 Apr. 2022, 15:36

Kim Yo-jong blasts South, defense minister following comments

Kim Yo-jong, North Korean leader's sister and vice department director of the ruling Workers' Party's Central Committee, is pictured as she visits the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum in Hanoi on March 2, 2019. [YONHAP]

The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un blasted South Korea's defense minister for highlighting Seoul's "preemptive strike" capabilities and threatened the South for making such "reckless" remarks, Pyongyang's state media reported Sunday.

In a press statement issued Saturday, Kim Yo-jong also called South Korean Defense Minister Suh Wook a "senseless and scum-like guy" for mentioning the possibility of a preemptive strike at a "nuclear weapons state," referring to the North's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

At a ceremony at the Strategic Missile Command in Wonju, Gangwon on Friday, Suh publicly stressed that the South Korean military "possesses large numbers and various types of missiles that have greatly improved in terms of range, accuracy and power, and it has capabilities to accurately and swiftly strike any targets in North Korea."

The minister also emphasized that Seoul's military could conduct precision strikes on the "origin of any attack and its command and support facilities."

"South Korea may face a serious threat owing to the reckless remarks made by its Defence Minister," Kim was quoted as saying in an English-language statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). "South Korea should discipline itself if it wants to stave off disaster," Kim added.

As the deputy director of the Publicity and Information Department of the North's ruling Workers' Party, Kim has issued statements directed at the South in the past. She described her latest message as a "warning upon authorization," suggesting that it was signed off by her brother.

"As long as the South Korean military revealed its intent to seek provocative incentive of serious level and escalate a showdown with the DPRK, I will give a serious warning upon authorization," Kim said, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

She also said that Pyongyang would "reconsider a lot of things concerning South Korea."

Kim"s strident denunciation of South Korea comes one month more before power is handed from President Moon Jae-in — who held multiple summits with Kim Jong-un and sought an end-of-war declaration to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula — to President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol, a conservative who signaled a harder stance on the campaign trail with an emphasis on "peace through strength" to deter the North from undertaking provocative actions.

In a separate statement on Sunday, Pak Jong-chon, secretary of the Workers' Party central committee, warned that Pyongyang will destroy any target in the South in case of a preemptive strike.

"If the South Korean army engages in a dangerous military action as a preemptive strike against the DPRK, being guided by misjudgment, our army will mercilessly direct all its military force into destroying major targets in Seoul and the South Korean army," he said.

Pak noted that the two Koreas are still technically at war, and that "any slight misjudgment and ill statement rattling the other party" could spark a full-scale conflict.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]