Kim’s Sister Slams Seoul In Response To Potential Sanctions

The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has insulted South Korea’s president and his government, calling them “idiots” and “a running wild dog nibbling on a bone handed by the US,” for adopting further unilateral sanctions against the North.

Two days before Kim Yo Jong’s tirade, the foreign ministry of South Korea had announced it was mulling new penalties against North Korea due to its recent barrage of missile tests.

The ministry stated that if the North commits a significant provocation, like as a nuclear test, it would also take into consideration taking action against purported cyberattacks by North Korea, which is seen to be a significant new source of revenue for its weapons program.

In a statement published by state media, Kim Yo Jong said, “I wonder what ‘sanctions’ the South Korean group, no more than a running wild dog gnawing on a bone given by the US, impudently will impose on North Korea.

“What a spectacle!”

Yoon Suk Yeol, the conservative president of South Korea, and his administration were referred to by her as “idiots who continue to create a perilous scenario.”

She continued by saying that South Korea “had not been our goal” under Mr. Yoon’s liberal predecessor Moon Jae-in, who sought peace with North Korea. The remark might have been made to inflame anti-Yoon feelings in South Korea.

Ms. Kim said: “We warn the impudent and stupid once again that the desperate sanctions and pressure of the US and its South Korean stooges against (North Korea) will add fuel to the latter’s hostility and anger and they will serve as a noose for them.”

Her formal title is deputy department director of the Workers’ Party, which currently controls the North. She manages contacts with South Korea and the United States, according to South Korea’s spy agency, and is the second-most influential person in the North after her brother.

Although Ms. Kim has used crude insults toward South Korea before, analyst Cheong Seong-Chang at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea said that given that she is in charge of relations with South Korea and has some influence over the North’s military, North Korea is expected to escalate military tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

As soon as Ms. Kim insulted Mr. Yoon, South Korea retaliated, calling it “extremely disgusting” for her to do so “with rude, substandard language and display no basic manners of decorum.”

The South Korean government’s Unification Ministry in Seoul vehemently denounced what it called “her dirty attempt to stir anti-government struggles and undermine our system.”

South Korea imposed its restrictions on 15 North Koreans and 16 organizations last month after suspecting them of taking part in illegal operations to fund the country’s nuclear and missile programs.

Although these were the first unilateral restrictions imposed by Seoul against North Korea in five years, experts claim that they were mostly symbolic because there aren’t many financial transactions between the two Koreas.

According to observers, Seoul’s efforts to work with the US and other countries to coordinate a crackdown on North Korea’s allegedly unlawful cyber activities might enrage the country and harm its ability to finance its nuclear programs.

In a report released earlier this year, a group of UN specialists said that North Korea was stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from banks, cryptocurrency companies, and exchanges. Since 2006, North Korea has been subject to 11 rounds of UN sanctions because of its nuclear and missile tests.