North Korean leader's sister says her country will never see the South as a diplomatic partner

SEOUL, South Korea — The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said her country will never see South Korea as a partner for diplomacy, state media reported Wednesday in what was her latest taunt of Seoul’s new efforts to mend ties.

Kim Yo Jong, who is one of her brother’s top foreign policy officials, denounced the ongoing South Korea-U.S. military drills as a “reckless” invasion rehearsal and claimed Seoul’s peace gestures conceal a “sinister intention” against Pyongyang.

Her comments came during a meeting Tuesday with senior Foreign Ministry officials about her brother’s diplomatic strategies in the face of persistent threats from rivals and a rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.

On Monday, Kim Jong Un condemned the South Korean-U.S. military drills and vowed a rapid expansion of his nuclear forces as he inspected his most advanced warship being fitted with nuclear-capable systems.

The North’s news agency said Kim Yo Jong condemned the South as the “top-class faithful dog” of the United States and said the reparation of inter-Korean relations desired by Seoul “will never” happen.

The siblings’ back-to-back statements followed the latest outreach by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who said last week Seoul would seek to restore a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement aimed at reducing border tensions, while urging Pyongyang to reciprocate by rebuilding trust and resuming dialogue.

Since taking office in June, Lee has moved to repair relations that worsened under his conservative predecessor’s hard-line policies, including removing front-line speakers that broadcast anti-North Korean propaganda and K-pop.

In a nationally televised speech Friday, Lee said his government respects North Korea’s current system and the wealthier South “will not pursue any form of unification by absorption and has no intention of engaging in hostile acts.”

But he also stressed the South remains committed to an international push to denuclearize the North and urged Pyongyang to resume dialogue with Washington and Seoul.

Angered by expanding South Korean-U.S. military drills, Kim Jong Un last year declared North Korea was abandoning long-standing goals of a peaceful unification with South Korea and rewrote the North’s constitution to mark the South as a permanent enemy.

Kim Yo Jong has repeatedly dismissed calls to revive negotiations aimed at winding down the North’s nuclear and missile programs, which derailed in 2019 following her brother’s collapsed summit with U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kim Jong Un has made Moscow the priority of his foreign policy, sending troops and weapons to support President Vladimir Putin’s war, while also using the conflict as a distraction to accelerate his military nuclear program.

In her meeting on Tuesday, Kim Yo Jong suggested that Pyongyang seeks to compete with Seoul diplomatically, claiming the South “will not even have a subordinate role in the regional diplomatic arena,” which she claimed will be centered on the North.