Kim Jong’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, insults Joe Biden

The powerful sister of the North Korean leader said her country would stage more provocative displays of its military might in response to a new US-South Korean deal to step up nuclear deterrence to counter the North’s nuclear threat, which, according to her, shows their “extreme” hostility towards Pyongyang.

Kim Yo Jong also hurled personal insults at US President Joe Biden, who after a summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Wednesday that any North Korean nuclear attack on the United States or its allies “would result in the end of all regimes”. such action.

Biden’s meeting with Yoon in Washington came amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula as the pace of North Korean weapons demonstrations and combined U.S.-South Korean military drills increased in a tit-for-tat cycle. -for-tat.

Since the start of 2022, North Korea has tested around 100 missiles, including multiple demonstrations of intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to reach the American mainland and a host of short-range launches that the North has described as simulated nuclear strikes. on South Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is expected to up the ante in the coming weeks or months as he continues to ramp up a campaign to cement the North’s status as a nuclear power and to possibly negotiate American economic and security concessions from a position of strength.

At their summit, Biden and Yoon announced new nuclear deterrence efforts that call for periodically docking U.S. nuclear submarines in South Korea for the first time in decades and boosting training between the two countries. They also committed to plans for bilateral presidential consultations in the event of a North Korean nuclear attack, the establishment of a nuclear advisory group and better information sharing on nuclear and weapons operations plans. strategic.

In comments published in state media, Kim Yo Jong said the U.S.-South Korean deal reflected the allies’ “most hostile and aggressive will for action” against the North and would put peace and security regions in “more serious danger”.

Kim, who is one of his brother’s top foreign policy officials, said the summit further strengthened the North’s belief in building up its nuclear weapons capabilities. She said it would be particularly important for the North to perfect the “second mission of nuclear war deterrence”, in an apparent reference to the country’s escalating nuclear doctrine which calls for preemptive nuclear strikes over a wide area. range of scenarios where he can perceive his interest. leadership as threatened.

She lambasted Biden for his blunt warning that North Korea’s nuclear aggression would bring about the end of his regime, calling him senile and “too wicked and irresponsibly brave.” “Absurd remark from the person in his age.”

“When you consider that phrase has been personally used by the President of the United States, our most hostile adversary, it is menacing rhetoric that he should prepare for in far too great a post-storm,” he said. she declared.

“The more the enemies are determined to hold nuclear war exercises, and the more they deploy nuclear assets near the Korean peninsula, the more the exercise of our right to self-defense will become in direct proportion to them.”

She called Yoon ‘crazy’ for his efforts to bolster South Korea’s defense in conjunction with its alliance with the United States and boost the South’s own conventional missile capabilities, saying he trusted absolute in the United States despite “nominal” promises. in return.

“The chimerical dream of the United States and (South) Korea will now be confronted with the most powerful entity of force,” she said.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, called his remarks “absurd” and insisted they reflected the North’s “nervousness and frustration” at allies’ efforts to strengthen nuclear deterrence.

Kim Yo Jong’s comments to Biden were reminiscent of when his brother called former US President Donald Trump a ‘mentally deranged American dotard’ as they exchanged verbal threats during a series of North Korean tryouts in 2017 which included flight testing of ICBMs and the North’s sixth nuclear test. .

Kim Jong Un then turned to diplomacy and held his first summit with Trump in Singapore in June 2018, where they issued ambitious goals for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without outlining when and how that would happen.

But their diplomacy never recovered from the collapse of their second summit in February 2019 in Vietnam, where the Americans rejected North Korean demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a limited surrender of their nuclear capabilities. .

Kim Yo Jong did not specify what steps the North plans to take in response to the results of the U.S.-South Korea summit.

Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korea Studies in Seoul, said the North would likely hold military exercises involving its alleged nuclear-capable missiles to demonstrate its pre-emptive strike capabilities. The North could also stage tests of submarine-launched ballistic missile systems in response to US plans to send nuclear submarines to the South, he said.

Kim Jong Un said this month that the country had built its first military spy satellite, which will be launched at an unspecified date. The launch would almost certainly be seen by rivals as a forbidden test of long-range missile technology.

In March, he called on his nuclear scientists to increase production of weapons-grade material to make bombs to put on his growing line of nuclear-capable missiles, as the North unveiled what appeared to be a new warhead possibly designed to accommodate a variety of delivery systems. It raised questions about whether the North was getting closer to its next nuclear test, which US and South Korean officials have been predicting for months.

North Korea has long described regular U.S. military drills with South Korea as invasion rehearsals, though allies have called the drills defensive. Many experts say Kim is likely using his rivals’ military drills as a pretext to advance his weapons programs and cement his national leadership amid economic difficulties.

In the face of growing threats from North Korea, Yoon sought stronger assurances from the United States that it would use its nuclear weapons quickly and decisively if the South came under nuclear attack from North Korea.

His government also expanded military training with the United States, which included the largest allied field exercises in years last month and separate drills involving a US carrier battle group and advanced fighter jets. , including nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and F-35s. fighter.

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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)

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