North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s influential sister has condemned upcoming joint military exercises between the United States, Japan and South Korea, calling them “dangerous” and a “reckless show of strength”.
The comments by Kim Yo Jong, published by state media on Sunday, come a day before Seoul and its allies begin drills combining naval, air and missile defence exercises off South Korea’s Jeju Island.
The drills, called the “Freedom Edge”, will last through Friday.
Kim Yo Jong, who is vice department director of the North Korean governing party’s central committee, slammed the drills as a “dangerous idea”.
“This reminds us that the reckless display of power displayed by the US, Japan, and South Korea in the wrong places, namely around the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, will undoubtedly bring about negative consequences for themselves,” Kim Yo Jong said, using the official name for North Korea.
The statement follows a visit by her brother to weapons research facilities this week, where he said Pyongyang “would put forward the policy of simultaneously pushing forward the building of nuclear forces and conventional armed forces”.
North Korea perceives the trilateral drills as “scenarios for limited or full-scale nuclear strikes and attempts to neutralise its launch platforms”, Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told the AFP news agency.
“The North is likely using the allied exercises as a pretext to push ahead with nuclear modernisation and conventional upgrades,” he added.
Aside from the trilateral exercises, the US and South Korea also plan to stage the “Iron Mace” tabletop exercises next week on integrating their conventional and nuclear capabilities against North Korea’s threats, South Korean local media reported.
South Korea hosts about 28,500 American soldiers in its territory.
“Iron Mace” will be the first such drills taking place under US President Donald Trump and newly elected South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who have expressed willingness to resume dialogue with North Korea.
If “hostile forces” continue to boast about their power through those joint drills, North Korea will take countermeasures “more clearly and strongly”, North Korea’s top party official Pak Jong Chon said in a separate dispatch via the state news agency KCNA.
Since a failed summit with the US in 2019 on denuclearisation, North Korea has repeatedly said it will never give up its nuclear weapons and declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state.
Kim Jong Un has been emboldened by the war in Ukraine, securing critical support from Russia after sending thousands of North Korean troops to fight alongside Moscow.
Moscow and Pyongyang signed a mutual defence pact last year when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the reclusive state.
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