North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs railed against United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Gutérres on Thursday for issuing a mild statement calling Pyongyang cutting off communications with South Korea regrettable, suggesting that Gutérres was pretending to be “drunk.”
North Korea’s communist government abruptly launched a barrage of hateful invective towards the South last week in response to the ongoing practice of North Korean refugees and human rights activists in the country sending humanitarian aid and leaflets with news of the outside world to the North. In the past, Pyongyang has responded to leaflet campaigns by dumping used toilet paper and other garbage into the South.
The dispute concluded with North Korea shutting down a direct phone line established after dictator Kim Jong-un met with leftist South Korean President Moon Jae-in in 2018, through which the two sides spoke twice a day, daily, for nearly two years. Gutérres’ office lamented the move, triggering the outburst from the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“It is the shabby and double-dealing behavior of the U.N. Secretary-General that he does not say a word when the sovereignty of the DPRK [North Korea], a full member of the U.N., is severely infringed, yet he never misses opportunity [sic] to subserviently raise his voice of ‘regret’ whenever the U.S. and its vassal forces pick a quarrel with the DPRK’s self-defensive measures,” an unnamed spokesman said, according to state media.
“I am not sure whether it is an expression of his ignorance, but Guterres, as the U.N. Secretary-General, must have expressed his viewpoint, cognizant at least of the fact that the current situation unfolding between the north and south has arisen not because they do not have communication lines or contact channels,” the spokesman added.
The Pyongyang Times omitted part of the spokesman’s remarks relayed by Singapore’s Channel News Asia in which he indicated that Gutérres saying he regretted a diplomatic setback was like faking intoxication.
“It is only the U.N. Secretary-General himself who would know whether he is pretending to blind himself to the articles of inter-Korean agreement on ceasing all hostilities against the other party or pretending to be knowingly drunken,” the North Korean diplomat reportedly said.
The statement concluded by asserting that the United Nations itself “has been reduced to a political tool of and a stooge for the privileged forces.”
“The US professes to be an advocate for the improved relations with the DPRK, but in fact, it is only hell-bent on exacerbating the situation. As a result, the Korean peninsula has now turned into the world’s most dangerous hotspot steadily haunted by the ghost of nuclear war, an adverse stream of durable and lasting peace which has been committed to establish by both sides,” the article concluded. “Never again will we provide the US chief executive with another package to be used for achievements without receiving any reward.”
Under Moon, who has adopted a policy of placating the North Korean regime, Pyongyang and Seoul enjoyed largely calm relations until this week, when North Korea suddenly launched attacks against the South Korean leaflet campaigns. North Korea is an isolated authoritarian state where citizens have no access to news of the outside world not filtered through the communist regime. To better inform them, South Korean activists use balloons to float leaflets with news, anti-Kim materials, and general information across the border. On the coasts, South Korean activists fill water bottles with rice and other foods to help the starving North Korean population survive.
“The disgusting riff-raff have committed hostile acts against the DPRK [North Korea] by taking advantage of the south [sic] Korean authorities’ irresponsible stance and with their connivance. They dared to hurt the dignity of our supreme leadership and mock the sacred mental core of all our people,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), a state media outlet, bellowed on Tuesday.
Kim Yo-jong, once the head of North Korea’s “Propaganda and Agitation Department” and sister to the dictator, reportedly organized the anti-leaflet campaign and is spearheading the newfound belligerence against Seoul.
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