North Korea tells South Korea president to ‘shut his mouth’ after offer of aid

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea’s Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong-un, said on Friday, August 19, that South Korea’s president should “shut his mouth” after he reiterated that his country was willing to provide economic aid in return for nuclear disarmament.

Her comments mark the first time a senior North Korean official has commented directly on what South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has called an “audacious” plan – first proposed in May and which he talked about again on Wednesday at a news conference to mark his first 100 days in office.

“It would have been more favorable for his image to shut his mouth,” Kim Yo-jong said in a statement released by state news agency KCNA, calling Yoon “really simple and still childish” to think that he could trade economic cooperation for the North’s honor and nuclear weapons.

“No one barters its destiny for corn cake,” she added.

South Korea’s Unification Minister, who handles relations with the North, called Kim’s comments “very disrespectful and indecent.”

While Yoon has said he is willing to provide phased economic aid to North Korea if it ended nuclear weapons development and began denuclearisation, he has also pushed to increase South Korea’s military deterrence against North Korea. South Korea has has resumed long-suspended joint drills with the United States, including major field exercises due to begin next week.

On Wednesday a US State Department spokesman said Washington supports Yoon’s policies, but Kim said the joint drills show that the allies’ talk of diplomacy is insincere.

“We make it clear that we will not sit face to face with him,” she said of Yoon.

Kim Yo-jong has become a vocal critic of South Korea in recent years, seen by some experts as playing “bad cop” to her brother’s more subdued statements.

Friday’s statement is her harshest personal attack on Yoon to date, but this month she also released a profanity-laced tirade that blamed the South for a COVID-19 outbreak in the North and threatened “deadly retaliation” if there were further occurrences.

Experts say South’s latest economic plan is similar to proposals by previous leaders, including those during the summits between the then-US president Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, suggesting the North was unlikely to accept the offer.

Friday’s statement is her harshest personal attack on Yoon to date, but this month she also released a profanity-laced tirade that blamed the South for a COVID-19 outbreak in the North and threatened “deadly retaliation” if there were further occurrences.

North Korea test fired two cruise missiles into the sea on Wednesday, the first such test in two months. It came after the country declared victory over COVID-19 last week. – Rappler.com