North Korean leader’s sister calls South, U.S., Japan denuclearization efforts ‘hostile act’

Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, denounced recent remarks by the foreign ministers of South Korea, the United States and Japan reaffirming their commitment to denuclearizing North Korea, calling it a “most hostile act.”

Kim issued a statement titled “The Obsolete Delusion of Denuclearization by the United States, South Korea and Japan Can Never Influence Our State,” in which she lashed out at the trilateral foreign ministers’ joint statement issued during the NATO Foreign Ministers’ Meeting last Thursday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Wednesday.

Kim dismissed their pledge to pursue the denuclearization of the North as “nothing more than an unattainable illusion,” adding that the cohort is “still clinging to the failed dream of the past, and constantly repeating the phrase ‘complete denuclearization’ only exposes to the world how outdated and senseless their political judgment is.”

She further mocked the joint stance, saying, “If they genuinely believe in what they’re saying about denuclearization, people will only think something is seriously lacking.”

Kim asserted that North Korea’s status as a nuclear-armed state is “the result of an inevitable choice that accurately reflects hostile external threats and the changing dynamics of global security, now and in the future,” and added, “It will not change just because someone refuses to acknowledge it.”

She also criticized any public mention of North Korea’s denuclearization as an attack on its sovereignty.

“Openly talking about our denuclearization or attempting to revive the already-dead concept of denuclearization under various guises amounts to denying the sovereignty of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and forcing us to abandon our constitution and system — an act of extreme hostility,” she said.

Kim warned that if “the United States and its followers” continue to cling to their “anachronistic obsession with denuclearization under the pretext of a so-called threat,” it will only further justify North Korea’s pursuit of “the strongest self-defensive nuclear capability.”

This is Kim’s first public statement in over a month since she warned on March 4, following the arrival of the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in Busan, that North Korea was considering “a strategic level overpowering response.”

BY JEONG HYE-JEONG [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]