Kim’s powerful sister slams South Korea’s ‘stupid’ disarmament-for-aid deal offer

Bloomberg

The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un rejected a disarmament-for-aid deal offered by South Korea’s president, calling it a “stupid” plan and dismissing the idea of engaging with Seoul.
Kim Yo Jong told South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to “stop dreaming in vain,” the state’s official Korean Central News Agency reported Friday. The comments added to the heated rhetoric she has fired off toward Yoon’s government this month, which has set the stage for Pyongyang to resume tests of weapons related to its nuclear program that have been put on hold as it battled a Covid outbreak.
Yoon’s proposal was “as stupid as trying to dry the dark blue ocean and turn it into a mulberry field,” Kim Yo Jong said, adding North Korea had no intention of getting rid of its nuclear arsenal and the weapons were not a subject for political bargaining.
“We just don’t like Yoon Suk Yeol as a human being,” Kim Yo Jong said of the conservative South Korean leader who took office in May and pledged to take a hard line towards Pyongyang.
Yoon this week offered an “audacious initiative” of food, energy and infrastructure aid for Pyongyang if it decides to give up its atomic weapons. He offered an opening for North Korea to get back to stalled talks by saying at a news conference aid could start even before the end of the state’s nuclear program, as long as Pyongyang shows a “firm will” that puts it on a path for denuclearization.
In a show of defiance, North Korea fired two cruise missiles Wednesday in a launch that coincided with Yoon’s news conference. Although there are no United Nations Security Council resolutions banning launches of such rockets, it was one of the most provocative moves from the state since it fired off eight ballistic missiles on a single day in June — in violation of the UN measures.
Kim Yo Jong chided South Korean authorities by saying they were clumsily mistaken about the cruise missile launch site and said it would be interesting to see how they make excuses to their people for the error.
South Korea’s presidential office expressed “deep regret” over Kim Yo Jong’s latest comments, saying in statement that they were “rude.”
Last week, Kim Yo Jong issued her first direct threat at Yoon since he took power. She repeated groundless claims that Covid entered North Korea on leaflets sent by balloon across the border by anti-Pyongyang activists in the South. She said if the acts continued, North Korea would eradicate South Korean authorities.