Seoul, April 29 (IANS) Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, on Saturday slammed the new South Korea-US agreement bolstering Washington’s nuclear deterrence efforts against Pyongyang, saying the plan will only result in “more serious danger”.
In North Korea’s first response to the Washington Declaration adopted during South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s state visit to the US, Kim Yo-jong said that the agreement reflects “the most hostile and aggressive will of action” against the North that will “only result in making peace and security of Northeast Asia and the world be exposed to more serious danger”, according to Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Her remarks came three days after Yoon and US President Joe Biden agreed to significantly strengthen Washington’s nuclear commitment to South Korea in the new agreement and promised to take “swift, overwhelming, and decisive” action in the event of North Korea’s nuclear attack.
Under the Washington Declaration, Yoon and Biden agreed to strengthen the US extended deterrence commitment to South Korea through the establishment of a Nuclear Consultative Group and more frequent deployments of American strategic assets to Seoul.
Kim Yo-jong warned that the change in security environment will only push the North to take “more decisive action”.
“The more the enemies are dead set on staging nuclear war exercises, and the more nuclear assets they deploy in the vicinity of the Korean peninsula, the stronger the exercise of our right to self-defence will become in direct proportion to them,” she was quoted saying by the KCNA.
She also lashed out at Biden’s warning that any nuclear attack against the US or its allies will result in the end of its regime.
Saying thathe was “too miscalculating and irresponsibly brave, Kim Yo-jong painted the warning as “nonsensical remark from the person in his dotage who is not at all capable of taking the responsibility for security and the future of the US, an old man with no future, as it is too much for him to serve out two-year remainder of his office term”.
She also took a swipe at Yoon, calling him a “fool” who has “put the security into crisis with his incompetence”.
Meanwhile, Seoul’s Unification Ministry condemned Kim Yo-jong’s remarks and warned that North Korea would face “even stronger and overwhelming” response if it continues to follow the “wrong path”.
–IANS
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