Seoul: North Korea is not interested in any policy or proposal from South Korea and will not sit down with Seoul for talks, the powerful sister of state leader Kim Jong-un said Monday. Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the ruling party's central committee, made the remarks in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), as South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has sought to resume dialogue with Pyongyang to ease military tension and improve inter-Korean ties.
According to Yonhap News Agency, this marks the North's first official statement on the Lee administration, which took office last month. "Looking at around the past 50 days since Lee Jae Myung took office ... (he) is no different from his predecessor in blindly adhering to the South Korea-U.S. alliance and pursuing confrontation with us," Kim said.
No matter how hard the Lee government tries to draw North Korea's attention, the North's stance toward the South will not change, she said. "I make it clear once again that we are not interested in any policy or proposal put forward by Seoul, and there will be no chance of us sitting down with South Korea for any discussions," she noted.
Kim pointed to a proposal in South Korea to normalize its unification ministry in charge of inter-Korean affairs, saying the ministry should be dissolved because the two Koreas are separate countries, and accused Seoul of being "possessed" by the specter of "unification by absorption." She also dismissed Seoul's recent suspension of spy agency-operated radio and television broadcasts targeting North Korea as something that "does not deserve any appreciation."
"There would be no greater misunderstanding if South Korea expected to overturn the consequences of its own making with a few sentimental words now, after having declared (North Korea) its main enemy and pursued extreme confrontation in the last," Kim noted. She also referred to proposals in South Korea to invite Kim Jong-un to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Gyeongju in October, calling them a "ridiculous delusion."
Unification ministry spokesperson Koo Byoung-sam in South Korea said Kim Yo-jong's statement confirmed the "high walls of distrust" between the two Koreas, but emphasized that the government will continue to consistently pursue reconciliation and cooperation with North Korea. "The latest statement demonstrated that the North Korean regime is closely watching the direction of the Lee government's North Korea policy," Koo said.
"The government will not waver in response to each reaction from North Korea but will calmly and consistently pursue efforts to build inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation and to realize mutual peace on the Korean Peninsula," he noted. South Korea's presidential office also issued a similar message, stating, "The government will consistently take necessary actions to ensure a Korean Peninsula without hostility and conflict, in line with the Lee Jae Myung administration's firm principle of establishing a state of peace where there is no need to fight."