North Korea insults Biden, slams defense deal with Seoul

The North Korean leader’s powerful sister says her country will stage more provocative displays of its military might, which she says reflects their “extreme” hostility, in response to a new US-South Korean deal to step up nuclear deterrence to counter the north’s nuclear threat opposite to the north shows Pyongyang.

Kim Yo Jong also personally insulted US President Joe Biden, who, after a summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday, declared that any North Korean nuclear attack on the US or its allies “would result in the end of any regime”. such action.

Biden’s meeting with Yoon in Washington came amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula as the pace of both North Korean arms demonstrations and combined US-South Korean military exercises have increased in a cycle of tit-for-tat.

Since early 2022, North Korea has tested around 100 missiles, including several demonstrations of ICBMs intended to reach the US mainland and a series of short-range launches that the North described as simulated nuclear strikes on South Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is widely expected to up the ante in the coming weeks or months as he further accelerates a campaign aimed at cementing the North’s status as a nuclear power and eventually from a position of strength negotiate US economic and security concessions.

During their summit, Biden and Yoon announced new nuclear deterrence efforts, calling for regular docking of US nuclear submarines in South Korea for the first time in decades and strengthening training between the two countries.

They also committed to plans for bilateral presidential consultations in the event of a North Korean nuclear attack, the establishment of a nuclear advisory group, and improved information-sharing on nuclear and strategic weapons plans.

In her comments published in state media, Kim Yo Jong said the US-South Korea deal reflects the allies’ “most hostile and aggressive will to act” against the North and will put regional peace and security “in more serious jeopardy”. .

Kim, who is one of her brother’s top foreign policy leaders, said the summit further strengthened the North’s belief in improving its nuclear weapons capabilities.

She said it was particularly important for the North to perfect the “second mission of nuclear war deterrence,” in an apparent reference to the country’s escalating nuclear doctrine, which calls for preemptive nuclear strikes in a variety of scenarios where it might perceive leadership as threatened.

She slammed Biden for his blunt warning that North Korean nuclear aggression would bring about the end of his regime, calling him senile and “overly miscalculated and irresponsibly brave.” However, she said the North would not simply dismiss his words as a “nonsensical remark from the person his age”.

“When we consider that this phrase was used personally by the President of the United States, our most hostile adversary, it is ominous rhetoric that he should brace for a far too great aftershock,” she said.

“The more the enemy is determined to hold nuclear war exercises and the more nuclear facilities they deploy near the Korean Peninsula, the stronger the exercise of our right of self-defense in direct relation to them.”

She called Yoon a “fool” for his efforts to bolster South Korea’s defenses in conjunction with its alliance with the United States and to bolster the South’s own conventional missile capabilities, and said he has his absolute faith in the US, even though he only received “nominal” promises in return.

“From now on, the dream of the USA and (South) Korea will be confronted with the unity of more powerful strength,” she said.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which is responsible for inter-Korean affairs, called their comments “absurd” and insisted they reflect the North’s “nervousness and frustration” at Allied efforts to strengthen nuclear deterrence.

Kim Yo Jong’s remarks to Biden recalled when her brother called former US President Donald Trump a “mentally deranged US dotard” while during a 2017 North Korean testing frenzy that included ICBM flight tests and the North’s sixth nuclear test, exchanged verbal threats.

Kim Jong Un later switched to diplomacy, holding his first summit with Trump in Singapore in June 2018, where they gave ambitious goals for a nuclear-weapon-free Korean Peninsula, without detailing when and how that would happen.

But their diplomacy never recovered from the collapse of their second summit in February 2019 in Vietnam, where the Americans rebuffed North Korean demands for greater sanctions relief in exchange for a limited relinquishment of their nuclear capabilities.

Kim Yo Jong did not specify the actions the North plans to take in response to the US-South Korea summit outcome.

Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said the North is likely to dial in military drills with its supposedly nuclear-capable missiles to demonstrate its pre-emptive strike capabilities.

The North may also conduct tests of submarine-launched ballistic missile systems in response to US plans to send nuclear-armed submarines to the South, he said.

Kim Jong Un said this month that the country has built its first military spy satellite, due to be launched at an unspecified date. The launch would almost certainly be viewed by its competitors as a forbidden test of long-range missile technology.

In March, he urged his nuclear scientists to increase production of weapons-grade material to make bombs for its expanding range of nuclear-capable missiles, when the North unveiled what appeared to be a new warhead potentially suitable for a variety of missile delivery systems.

This raised questions about whether the North is getting any closer to its next nuclear test, which US and South Korean officials have been predicting for months.

North Korea has long called the United States’ regular military drills with South Korea invasion rehearsals, though allies have described those drills as defensive.

Many experts say Kim is likely using his rivals’ military drills as an excuse to advance his weapons programs and solidify his domestic leadership amid economic woes.

With North Korean threats mounting, Yoon has sought stronger assurances from the United States that it would use its nuclear weapons swiftly and decisively if the South came under a North Korean nuclear attack.

His administration has also expanded military training with the US, including the largest allied field exercises in years last month and separate exercises with a US aircraft carrier battle group and advanced fighter aircraft, including nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and F-35 fighter jets.