South Korea to hold meeting of diplomatic missions next week
South Korea will open an annual meeting of its top envoys abroad next week with a focus on strengthening its diplomacy amid geopolitical challenges, the foreign ministry said on Thursday.
The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un threatened military action against South Korea as she bashed Seoul on Saturday over declining bilateral relations and its inability to stop activists from floating anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.
“I feel it is high time to surely break with the south Korean authorities. We will soon take a next action,” she said in the latest denunciation of Seoul.
Last week the North has issued a series of vitriolic condemnations of the South over activists sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border — something defectors do on a regular basis.
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Kim Yo Jong said that “the right to taking the next action against the enemy will be entrusted to the General Staff of our army.
“Before long, a tragic scene of the useless north-south joint liaison office completely collapsed would be seen,” her statement on KCNA said.
Kim, who is first vice department director of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Committee, said she would leave it to North Korea’s military leaders to carry out the next step of retaliation against the South.
Last week she condemned Seoul for not blocking activists from flying balloons carrying anti-regime leaflets across the border.
On Tuesday, the United States had criticized North for cutting communications lines with the South and urged Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table.
The threats come with inter-Korean ties at a standstill, despite three summits between the North’s Kim Jong Un and the South’s President Moon Jae-in in 2018.
Earlier, the North threatened to close the liaison office with the South and threatened further steps to make Seoul “suffer.”
Pyongyang has balked at all of South Korea’s offers for talks and cooperation amid a deadlock in denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington.
(With inputs from agency)
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