SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – In North Korea’s first comments to the Biden administration, Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister warned the United States on Tuesday to “refrain from stinking” if they want to ” sleep in peace “for the next four years.
Kim Yo Jong’s statement was issued when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin arrived in Asia to speak with US allies Japan and South Korea about Korea. Northern and other regional issues. They have meetings in Tokyo on Tuesday before speaking with officials in Seoul on Wednesday.
“We take this opportunity to warn the new US administration that it is trying to emit dust (gun) odor into our land,” he said. “If you want to sleep peacefully for the next four years, you better refrain from stinking on your first step.”
Kim Yo Jong, a senior official in charge of inter-Korean affairs, also criticized the U.S. and South Korea for conducting military exercises. He also said the North would consider abandoning a 2018 bilateral agreement on reducing military tensions and abolishing a unit of the ruling party decades ago in charge of managing inter-Korean relations if it no longer had to cooperate with the South.
He said the north would also consider undoing an office that managed South Korean excursions to the picturesque northern mountain of the Diamond, which Seoul suspended in 2008 after a North Korean guard fatally shot a South Korean tourist.
The North “will monitor the attitude and future actions of the (South Korean) authorities” before determining whether to take exceptional action against its rival, it said in a statement published in Pyongyang’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper.
The challenges posed by North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and China’s growing influence appear in the Biden administration’s first trip abroad, which is part of a larger effort to bolster U.S. influence. and jeopardizing concerns about the role of the United States in Asia after President Donald Trump’s first four years in America.
A senior Biden administration official said Saturday that U.S. officials have tried to reach North Korea through multiple channels since last month, but had not yet received a response. The official was not allowed to publicly discuss the diplomatic broadcast and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“This is Kim Yo Jong who remains the tip of the wedge. North Korea is trying to drive between South Korea and its American ally,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha University in Seoul. “North Korea’s latest threats mean the Allies have very little time to coordinate their approaches to deterrence, sanctions and compromise.”
Biden’s presidency begins when Kim Jong Un faces perhaps the hardest moment of his nine-year rule. His country’s battered economy has collapsed even further amid the closure of pandemic borders, while its summits with Trump did not lift crippling sanctions.
While Kim in recent political speeches has promised to bolster her nuclear weapons program, she has also said the fate of U.S. relations depends on Washington’s actions.
The 2018 military deal, which had been the most tangible result of the three summits between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, requires countries to take steps to reduce conventional military threats, such as establish border shock absorbers on land and sea and fly areas.
But inter-Korean relations have collapsed amid stagnant nuclear diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang.
Last week, the South Korean and U.S. military began annual military exercises that continue through Thursday. The exercises are command and computer simulation exercises and do not involve field training. They said they held the reduced exercises after reviewing factors such as the state of COVID-19 and diplomatic efforts to resume nuclear talks with North Korea.
But Kim Yo Jong said even the smallest exercises are an act of hostility to the north. In the past, the North has often responded with missile tests with drills between the US and South Korea.
“(War exercises) and hostility can never go with dialogue and cooperation,” he said.
Boo Seung-chan, a spokesman for South Korea’s Defense Ministry, said the combined exercises were defensive in nature and called on the North to show a “more flexible attitude” that would be constructive to stabilize peace on the mainland. Korea. He said the southern army did not detect unusual signs of northern military activity.