The powerful sister of leader Kim Jong-un called a US push for the denuclearisation of the North an “anachronistic dream”, saying the country will instead expand its nuclear arsenal in the face of US-led threats.
The statement came a day before Chinese President Xi Jinping visits Pyongyang for talks, in his first visit to the country in seven years.
“The US assertion to backbite the status of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state has no legally binding force and no one will be bound by the US unilateral rhetoric,” said Jong-un’s sister and senior official, Kim Yo-jong, using the abbreviation for the North’s official name.
She dismissed as “false information” a US announcement that President Donald Trump and Xi had confirmed their shared goal to denuclearise North Korea in their summit in Beijing last month.
“Some officials in the United States have failed to wake from their escapist and anachronistic dream,” Yo-jong said.
Pyongyang has focused on enlarging its nuclear arsenal since Jong-un’s high-stakes diplomacy with Trump collapsed in 2019.
Experts say Jong-un wants international recognition of the country as a nuclear state so that he could demand lifting of international economic sanctions.
During a visit to a new nuclear materials production plant last week, Jong-un said the country would bolster its nuclear forces “at an exponential rate”.
State media also reported that Jong-un visited a weapons factory the previous day and called for increasing the country’s missile production capacity 2.5 times under a five-year plan period.
In her statement, Yo-jong accused the United States and South Korea of pushing for “ceaseless arms build-ups”, saying her brother’s push for “steadily beefing up the nuclear war deterrent for self-defence” is “an irreversible final conclusion to be carried out unconditionally”.
Analysts say Xi’s visit is largely meant to reassert China’s influence over North Korea, whose foreign policy priority has shifted to Russia in recent years. — AP
