SEOUL: Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has slammed South Korea’s recent live-fire drills as “provocation,” warning of serious consequences.
South Korea said last week it had resumed live-fire artillery drills near the borders with the North, following the suspension of a 2018 bilateral military pact aimed at reducing tensions.
Kim Yo Jong called the firing drills an “inexcusable and explicit provocation,” state media reported.
“The question is why the enemy kicked off such war drills near the border, suicidal hysteria, for which they will have to sustain terrible disaster,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by the state-owned Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Monday.
She said the exercises are an attempt by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to deliberately escalate tensions on the Korean peninsula to divert attention from domestic political crisis, referring to an online petition calling for the impeachment of Yoon, with more than 1 million signatures.
“Yoon and his group, plunged into the worst ruling crisis, are attempting an ’emergency escape’ through the platform of ever-escalating tensions,” Kim Yo Jong said.
Kim warned, “In case it is judged according to our criteria that they violated the sovereignty of (North Korea) and committed an act tantamount to a declaration of war, our armed forces will immediately carry out its mission and duty assigned by the (North Korean) constitution.”
She, however, didn’t elaborate on the North’s response.
The exercises were the first of their kind since Seoul in early June suspended an agreement signed with Pyongyang in 2018 which was aimed at easing front-line military tensions.
Seoul fully suspended the pact after North Korea sent trash-filled balloons across the border to protest South Korean activists’ balloon launches with anti-North Korea leaflets.
Tensions between the two Koreas are also running high after the North signed a mutual defense pact with Russia, and the joint military exercises held by the South, Japan and the US last month.
North Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement that such drills show the relationship among the trio has developed into “the Asian version of NATO.”
It also vowed that the country will protect regional peace with an overwhelming response.
North Korea says it has successfully tested a new tactical ballistic missile capable of carrying a “super-large warhead”.
Pyongyang, which has been under harsh sanctions by the United States and the United Nations Security Council for years over its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs, says such military maneuvers amount to a rehearsal for invasion.
North Korea’s leader has repeatedly said his government is building up its military arsenal in preparation for war by the West that could “break out at any time” on the peninsula.
Agencies

Agencies