North Korea has no interest in any policy or proposals for
reconciliation from South Korea, according to the powerful sister of its leader, Kim Jong Un. She revealed this on Monday, in the first response to
peace overtures by the South’s liberal President Lee Jae Myung.
South Korea had been optimistic that the North might respond positively and even show willingness to return to dialogue after Pyongyang also shut off its propaganda loudspeakers, a move that Lee said came sooner than expected.
However, Kim Yo Jong, a senior official of North Korea’s ruling party who is believed to speak for its leader, said Lee’s pledge of commitment to the South Korea-U.S. security alliance showed he was no different from his hostile predecessor.
“If South Korea expects to reverse all the consequences of (its actions) with a few sentimental words, there could be no greater miscalculation than that,” Kim said in comments carried by the official KCNA news agency.
South Korea Peace Moves
Lee, who took office on June 4 after winning a snap election following the removal of hardline conservative Yoon Suk Yeol over a failed attempt at martial law, has vowed to improve ties with Pyongyang that had reached their worst level in years.
Among gestures to ease tension, Lee suspended loudspeaker broadcasts blasting anti-North propaganda across the border and banned the balloon drops of leaflets by activists that had angered Pyongyang. North Korean officials however called those moves merely a reversal of ill-intentioned activities South Korea should never have initiated.
“We again make clear the official position that whatever policy is established in Seoul or proposal is made, we are not interested, and we will not be sitting down with South Korea and there is nothing to discuss.” Kim said.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry, charged with handling ties between the two countries, said Kim Yo Jong’s comments “show the wall of distrust between the South and the North is very high as a result of hostile and confrontational policy over the past few years”. South Korea will keep up efforts for reconciliation and cooperation with the North, ministry spokesperson Koo Byoung-sam told a briefing.
Minister, Chung Dong-young, said he planned to advise Lee to adjust joint military drills with the United States as the exercise has been greatly criticized by North Korea. Lee, whose government is embroiled in tough negotiations with the US to avert punishing tariffs threatened by President Donald Trump, has called the U.S. alliance the pillar of South Korea’s diplomacy.
North – South Korea Age Long Conflict
The disagreements between South Korea and North Korea dates back to the aftermath of World War II, when the Korean Peninsula was divided along the 38th parallel. The Soviet Union occupied the North while the United States took control of the South, leading to the formation of two separate governments in 1948, a communist regime in North Korea and a democratic government in South Korea.
This ideological division sparked the Korean War in 1950 when North Korea invaded the South. The two Koreas, the United States and China, were the main belligerents in the 1950-53 Korean war which ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty, meaning the two countries remain technically at war and a heavily militarized border, the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), now separates them.
