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Seoul — Kita Kim Jong Un South Korea's Kim Yo Jong, the chairman's powerful sister, said on Friday that the South Korean president should "keep his mouth shut" after reiterating that he was ready to provide economic aid in exchange for nuclear disarmament.
Her comments are the first time a senior North Korean official has directly commented on what South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol called a "bold" plan. A press conference marking the 100th day of his inauguration.
"It would have been better for his image to keep his mouth shut than to say nonsense because he had nothing else to say." Kim Yo-jong said in a statement issued by the state, news agency KCNA said it was "really naive and still childish" for Yoon to think he could sacrifice economic cooperation for the sake of North Korea's honor and nuclear weapons.
"No one trades fate for corn cakes," she added.
While Yoon has said he is prepared to provide phased economic aid to North Korea should it stop developing nuclear weapons and begin denuclearization, It also promotes strengthening South Korea's military deterrence. South Korea has resumed long-running joint exercises with the United States, including large-scale field exercises scheduled to begin next week.
On Wednesday, a US State Department spokesman said Washington supported Yoon's policies, but Kim said the joint exercise was disingenuous of allies' diplomatic talks. said to indicate that
"We make it clear that we are not sitting face-to-face with him," she said of Yoon.
While Friday's statement was her toughest personal attack on Yoon yet, this month she also spoke out about the spread of COVID-19 in North Korea. He lashed out at the South for the outbreak and lashed out at him with profanity-laced rants threatening "fatal retribution" if it did occur. More happened.
Experts say South Korea's latest economic plan resembles proposals by previous leaders, including those proposed at the then-US-China summit. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.
"Yun's initiative adds to a long list of failed offers that include South Korean promises to provide North Korea with economic benefits...these are a series of jumps It was the same assumption behind the failed efforts of the US to start denuclearization talks," Scott Snyder, a senior fellow at the think tank Council on Foreign Relations, said in a blog post Thursday.
North Korea launched two cruise missiles into the sea on Wednesday for the first time in two months. It came last week after the country declared victory over COVID-19. (Reporting by Joori Roh; Additional reporting by Josh Smith and Soo-hyang Choi; Editing by Richard Pullin and Edwina Gibbs)