DPRK warns of possible military retaliation against South Korea

It is high time to break with the South Korean authorities and retaliate with possible military force against the South, a senior official of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea said on Saturday.

In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, Kim Yo Jong, first vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and younger sister of DPRK leader Kim Jong Un, said she had given instructions for decisive action to be taken.

The DPRK has lashed out at South Korea since last week to protest at the anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets dropped by defectors and activists across the border. Pyongyang has also closed its joint liaison office and cut off all communication lines with the South.

“If I drop a hint of our next plan the South Korean authorities are anxious about, the right to taking the next action against the enemy will be entrusted to the General Staff of our army,” she said, adding that the army “will determine something for cooling down our people’s resentment and surely carry it out.”

Meanwhile, a senior DPRK diplomat urged South Korea on Saturday to stop “nonsensical” talk about denuclearization.

Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the Department of US Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency that it is “preposterous” to hear South Korean authorities commenting on the resumption of DPRK-US dialogue.

Kwon said it is not because there is not a mediator that the DPRK-US dialogue has broken down and the denuclearization blown off, but it is because “conditions are not met” for denuclearization.

Negotiations between the DPRK and the United States have stalled.