- Diplomatic efforts to denuclearize North Korea receive a clear rejection from Pyongyang
- Kim Yo-jong, sister of the ruler, calls the country’s nuclear status an “irreversible reality.”
- Just hours earlier, Washington had declared that it was open to dialogue with North Korea “without preconditions.”
Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, has it status of your country as a nuclear weapons power declared non-negotiable. North Korea’s status as a nuclear weapons state is an “irreversible reality – regardless of whether others recognize it or not,” said the 38-year-old via the state news agency KCNA. Enemy forces should give up their “daydreams of denuclearization,” Kim continued. In doing so, Kim Yo-jong clearly rejected diplomatic efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament in North Korea.
Just on Friday, a US State Department spokesman told the South Korean news agency Yonhap that the United States remained open to dialogue with North Korea “without preconditions” and “continues to adhere to the goal of complete denuclearization of North Korea.”
Visit from China’s head of state
Kim’s statements come shortly before an announced state visit by China’s head of state Xi Jinping. The Chinese president will visit North Korea on Monday for the first time since 2019. China is North Korea’s only formal ally based on a mutual assistance treaty. The two countries fought side by side during the Korean War (1950-53).
North Korea has been subject to extensive UN sanctions for around two decades because of its nuclear and missile programs. Most recently, China and Russia blocked further punitive measures against North Korea in the UN Security Council. They also prevented the extension of the mandate of a UN panel of experts that had monitored the implementation of the sanctions.
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Yasmin Rosner (roy), born in 1980, has been working from abroad for 20 minutes at the news desk on the night shift since 2017.
