On August 19, DPRK’s Korean Central News Agency published a statement of Kim Yo-jong, Deputy Director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, on the major international issues escalating the global security crisis. She denied President Donald Trump’s claim that there had been communication between the US and DPRK leaders.
Deputy Director Kim Yo-jong first mentioned the conflict in the Middle East, then pointed out that the war in Ukraine “has entered a more serious stage in Europe owing to the reckless confrontational intention of the Western group to impose a strategic defeat on Russia.”
Deputy Director Kim Yo-jong emphasized, “We make it clear that the ‘additional deployment theory’ of our military spread by the Volodymyr Zelenskyy clique is a completely groundless drama staged by Kyiv.”
She also stated that North Korea is gravely watching Japan’s reckless military expansion attempts, warning that the fact that North Korea takes Japan’s re-militarization threat seriously means “Japan’s own security faces a much more dangerous situation.”
She warned that “if Japan tries to make a wrong choice, it will face immediate annihilating blow impossible to survive,” adding that “Japan’s military development is a suicidal act taking oil to extinguish the fire.”
Regarding President Donald Trump’s reduction of US-‘ROK’ joint military exercises, she stated, “we regard it as the one unworthy of comment and have no interest in it at all,” adding, “The reduction of the scale and duration of the drill does not mean the change of the nature of the military drill with a provocative and offensive feature.”
After listing a series of US-‘ROK’ joint exercises such as ‘Buddy Squadron’ in February and ‘Freedom Shield’ in March, she countered that “This suggests that the drill which was recently said to be reduced is fully substituted for such drills.”
She also criticized the ‘ROK’ government acquiring nuclear-powered submarines to the USA.
Deputy Director Kim Yo-jong further criticized, “We are paying more attention to the fact that the joint military drills between the U.S. and the ‘ROK’ have been steadily staged and are still under way, not to the reduction or shortening of individual drills,” adding, “If the USA calculates that it can propagate its recent measure as the one of so-called good faith, they will not get desired answer.”
She stated that “As for the news from Washington that shortly ago, there was a communication between the leaders of the DPRK and the U.S., I am not aware of it at all, and perhaps it may be the only thing I do not know as regards the foreign policy of our supreme leadership.”
