North Korea strengthens its preemptive strike capability

The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un tore South Korea apart for conducting military exercises with the United States, she said to be a repeat of the invasion and warned on Tuesday that the North would work faster to strengthen its preemptive strike capabilities.

Kim Yo Jong’s statement came after South Korean media reported that the Allied military would begin four days of preliminary training on Tuesday before holding computer-simulated exercises August 16-26.

Kim said she had delegated authority to release the statement, implying that the message came directly from her brother.

She called the South’s decision to hold joint exercises despite earlier warnings from the North as “treacherous behavior” that will push the allies to face a “more serious security threat.”

She said the continuation of the exercises exposed the hypocrisy of the Biden administration’s offers to resume dialogue on the northern nuclear weapons program. She said there would be no stabilized peace on the Korean Peninsula unless the United States withdrew its troops and weapons to the South.

Kim said the North would “give more impetus to increasing deterrence than the absolute ability to deal with ever-increasing military threats from the United States,” including its national defense capabilities and “powerful pre-emptive strikes.” “To” quickly counter any military action. against us.”

“(The exercises) are the most striking expression of the hostile United States policy towards the DPRK, designed to suffocate our state by force, and an unwelcome act of self-destruction for which a dear price must be paid because they threaten the security of our people and further endanger the situation on the Korean Peninsula, ”Kim said, using the initials of the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“For peace to take hold on the peninsula, it is imperative that the United States withdraw its aggression troops and war materiel deployed in (South) Korea. As long as American forces remain in (South) Korea ), the root cause of the periodic worsening of the situation on the Korean Peninsula will never go away. “

It was not immediately clear whether North Korea’s threat to advance its preemptive strike capabilities signaled a resumption of testing activities.

The North ended a year-long hiatus in ballistic testing in March by firing two short-range missiles into the sea, continuing a tradition of testing new U.S. administrations with weapons demonstrations and other provocations aimed at apparently measuring Washington’s response and wresting concessions.

But the North has not made any known test launches since then, as Kim Jong Un has focused national efforts on tackling Covid-19 and rescuing a shattered economy even further damaged by border closures in the event of pandemic.

North Korea’s angry reaction to the exercises further diminishes South Korea’s hopes for improving bilateral ties, which rose after the North agreed to reopen communication channels with the long-blocked South in late July.

But just days after the lines were restored, Kim Yo Jong warned that planned military exercises between South Korea and the United States would undermine prospects for better inter-Korean relations.

Some analysts say the North’s decision to restore lines of communication was primarily aimed at pushing Seoul into convincing Washington to make concessions while nuclear diplomacy remains at an impasse.

Kim Jong Un, in recent political speeches, pledged to strengthen his nuclear deterrence while urging his people to remain resilient in a struggle for economic independence in the face of pressure from the United States. His government has so far rejected the opening of the Biden administration talks, demanding that Washington first abandon its “hostile” policies.

The United States is keeping approximately 28,000 troops in South Korea to help deter possible aggression from North Korea, a legacy of the 1950-1953 Korean War. The allies have yet to officially announce details of this month’s exercises.

Boo Seung-Chan, spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry, said in a briefing that the allies were discussing the “timing, scale and methods” of the summer exercises. He did not comment directly on Kim Yo Jong’s statement.

The North has long bristled at joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States, which the allies call defensive in nature, and often responds to them with its own weapons tests.

In recent years, however, South Korea and the United States have canceled or reduced some of their training to support the now dormant diplomacy over the end of the North Korean nuclear crisis or because of the Covid pandemic. -19.

North Korea has suspended nuclear and long-range missile testing since 2018, when leader Kim Jong Un began diplomacy with South Korea and then-President Donald Trump while trying to take advantage of its nuclear weapons for an essential reduction of sanctions.

But after talks failed in 2019, the North stepped up testing of new, close-range solid-fuel weapons, underscoring efforts to improve its capabilities to launch nuclear strikes and crush missile defense systems. in South Korea and Japan.

Inter-Korean relations blossomed during the 2018 diplomacy, in which Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met three times and vowed to resume inter-Korean economic cooperation when possible. , expressing their optimism about the end of the sanctions and authorizing such projects.

But the North then severed ties with South Korea after the second Kim-Trump summit failed in 2019, when the Americans rejected North Koreans’ demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial transfer of their nuclear capacities.