North Korean leader Kim Jong Un who was reportedly killed for several weeks did not appreciate North Korean defectors and South Korean activists sending across the border balloons carrying leaflets which accuse the North Korean leader of violating human rights and who denounce his nuclear policy.
His younger sister Kim Yo Jong, who is in charge of propaganda and who might one day take power, threatened to break the military agreement with South Korea and close the cross-border liaison office if Seoul did nothing to prevent these militants.
"Human rot" and "rotten mongrel dogs"
"The South Korean authorities will pay a heavy price if they allow this situation to continue while making all kinds of excuses," Kim Yo Jong said without joking in a statement issued by the official press agency KCNA. And to continue in delicacy by describing the North Korean defectors as “human rot” and “rotten mongrel dogs” who betrayed their homeland.
Even if it is recurrent with North Korea to see it practicing since the signing of the armistice a policy of openness with South Korea before taking a step back, this announcement once again shows a change in tone with a serious screw. The military agreement and the cross-border liaison office were signed in 2018 during the visit of South Korean President Moon Jae-in to Pyongyang. The fact remains that these agreements have largely remained a dead letter and have never been implemented. North Korea continued to carry out dozens of military tests.
On the other hand, Pyongyang largely ended its relations with Seoul following the failure in February 2019 of the Hanoi summit between Kim Jung Un and US President Donald Trump. Since then, negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang on the North Korean nuclear and ballistic programs have been deadlocked.
Big brake on the approach
Kim Yo Jong also threatened to definitively put an end to economic projects between the two nations, in particular concerning the Inter-Korean industrial park of Kaesong and the visits of Mount Kumgang.
Statements come as late as May, President Moon had called for a new summit between Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in order to resolve relations that are currently severed. South Korea has even proposed inter-Korean cooperation in the fight against the new coronavirus as well as the resumption of the joint tourist program and the connection of inter-Korean railways. He even urged the United States to be flexible with regard to the sanctions imposed on North Korea in order to allow the reconnection of railways and roads and cooperation in the forestry sector.
