Kim Jong-un’s Sister Threatens to Nuke South Korea

Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, attends wreath laying ceremony at
JORGE SILVA/AFP via Getty Images

Kim Yo-jong, the powerful and influential sister of communist North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, threatened to use nuclear weapons against South Korea on Tuesday after South Korean Defense Minister Suh Wook discussed his military’s ability to “accurately and swiftly” strike targets in the North.

Suh made his comments on Friday while attending a ceremony at the South Korean Army Missile Strategic Command base in Wonju.

“Currently, our military possesses large numbers and various types of missiles that have greatly improved in terms of ranges, accuracy and power, and it has capabilities to accurately and swiftly strike any targets in North Korea,” Suh told his troops.

Suh said South Korea has the ability to strike the “origin of any attack and its command and support facilities,” a comment widely interpreted as a warning to North Korea, which conducted a provocative missile test in late March.

The Associated Press

Suh Wook, chief director of operations at the South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks during a press conference at the Defense Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. (Lee Ji-eun/Yonhap via AP)

Suh’s warning was certainly heard in Pyongyang. The communist tyranny went berserk after the South Korean defense minister’s address to his missile corps. North Korean propaganda shrieked that Suh was threatening to launch “pre-emptive strikes,” a phrase he never actually used.

North Korean military chief Pak Jong-chon railed that his forces would “mercilessly direct all its military force into destroying major targets in Seoul and the South Korean army,” if the South were to be “guided by misjudgment” and engage in “dangerous military action such as a pre-emptive strike.”

The Associated Press

In file this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party in Pyongyang, North Korea, Jan. 19, 2022. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

Pak warned that “any slight misjudgement and ill statement rattling the other party under the present situation” could lead to “a dangerous conflict and a full-blown war.”

Kim Yo-jong quickly took point on responding to South Korea, unleashing a barrage of insults and threats over the weekend.

“The senseless and scum-like guy dare mention a ‘preemptive strike’ at a nuclear weapons state,” Kim snarled. “South Korea may face a serious threat owing to the reckless remarks made by its defense minister. South Korea should discipline itself if it wants to stave off disaster.”

“As long as the South Korean military reveals its intent to seek provocative incentives of serious level and escalate a showdown with the DPRK, I will give a serious warning upon authorization,” she said

DPRK is the North Korean regime’s name for itself, and the phrase “warning upon authorization” implies she was speaking with the approval and endorsement of her brother.

Kim said her regime would “reconsider a lot of things concerning South Korea” in light of Suh’s remarks.

On Tuesday, Kim issued another statement carried by North Korean state media in which she slammed Suh’s remarks – or, more properly, North Korea’s interpretation of them – as a “fantastic daydream” and the “hysteria of a lunatic.”

“In case [South Korea] opts for military confrontation with us, our nuclear combat force will have to inevitably carry out its duty,” Kim howled. “A dreadful attack will be launched and the [South Korean] army will have to face a miserable fate little short of total destruction and ruin.”

Kim arrogantly insisted Pyongyang does not see South Korea as its “primary enemy” because the South Korean military is so feeble compared to the North’s forces.

“We will not fire even a single bullet or shell toward South Korea. It is because we do not regard it as a match for our armed forces,” she sneered.

“In other words, it means that unless the south Korean army takes any military action against our state, it will not be regarded as a target of our attack,” she said, alluding to North Korea’s standard propaganda line that the South Korean government is merely a puppet of the North’s true enemy, the United States.

Kim’s tirade was translated by South Korea’s Korean Joongang Daily, which speculated the heavy breathing from Pyongyang was basically North Korea’s traditional welcome for a new South Korean administration. President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol will take office next month and is expected to take a harder line against North Korea than his left-wing predecessor, Moon Jae-in.

Yoon has discussed the idea of pre-emptive strikes to thwart an imminent North Korean attack using advanced technology, such as hypersonic missiles. A spokesman for the incoming South Korean president said on Tuesday that he stands by those remarks in the face of belligerent rhetoric from the North.

“Preemptive strikes are one of the actions accepted in the world, including at the U.N., as being usable not in a preventative sense but when a preemptive threat persists,” Yoon spokeswoman Kim Eun-hye said.

Kim Eun-hye noted that Kim Yo-jong unleashed her tirade at the defense minister from the current administration, so the incoming president is not responsible for Suh’s statements.

“Therefore, while I will say that we will respond without the slightest error to North Korea’s provocations and security threats, I would be grateful if you could ask Minister Suh and the defense ministry regarding their interpretation,” she concluded truculently.

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