In Pyongyang’s most upfront verbal provocation yet, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, warned on Tuesday that if South Korea chooses military confrontation or launches a preemptive strike, it will be forced to respond with a nuclear attack.
Kim, who is also the vice department director of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), made the threat through a press statement released by the state-owned media house, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). “In case south Korea opts for military confrontation with us, our nuclear combat force will have to inevitably carry out its duty,” the outlet reported her as saying.
Kim noted that although the “primary mission” of nuclear weapons is to prevent war, in the event of war, its “mission will convert into the one of eliminating the enemy’s armed forces at a strike” “One’s nuclear combat force is mobilised to completely dampen the enemy’s war spirits and prevent protracted hostilities… If the situation reaches such phase, 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 underlined.
Kim Yo Jong: still not happy about the South Korean defense minister's comments last week pic.twitter.com/a5Hw5tq2sw
— William Gallo (@GalloVOA) April 4, 2022
Kim also stressed that her comments were “not just a threat” but a “detailed explanation of our reaction to possible reckless military action by South Korea and its consequences and, at the same time, a briefing on the reason why South Korea should not harbour such fancy as a military provocation against a nuclear weapons state.”
Her comments come after South Korean Minister of National Defence Suh Wook said at a military event on Friday that Seoul’s defence forces are “capable and ready to accurately strike the origin of North Korea’s missile firing and command and support facilities in a clear case of missile firing.
Immediately after, Kim Yo-jong warned the diplomat against making such “reckless remarks,” saying that Seoul “may face a serious threat.” “We cannot but take his confrontation hysteria seriously and reconsider many things,” she warned, calling the remarks a “very big mistake.”
However, in her latest comments on the matter, the top diplomat from Pyongyang acknowledged that “there is a way for averting such a miserable end” if Seoul “refrains from making untimely provocation and dreaming a daydream and ponders over a way for protecting itself from a shower of fire.”
🇰🇷⚡️🇰🇵South Korea said it could strike the North within 48 hours as a preventive measure to prevent the DPRK's work on nuclear weapons
— The RAGE X (@theragex) April 4, 2022
The comments from both sides also follow the provocative promises made by Seoul’s president-elect, Yoon Suk-Yeol. After winning the race, Yoon assured that he would firmly deal with North Korea and proposed making economic aid to North Korea conditional upon its progress toward denuclearisation. Taking a proactive stance on Pyongyang, Yoon has previously expressed his intention to launch preemptive strikes on the North if it displays an intent to attack.
Since the beginning of the year, North Korea has test-fired a range of increasingly powerful missiles. This has worried officials in Seoul and Washington that the secretive regime may be preparing to resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 2017 amid stalled peace talks.