South 'closely observing' North's position after Kim Yo-jong statement rejecting inter-Korea talks
Published: 28 Jul. 2025, 12:17
Updated: 28 Jul. 2025, 16:18
![Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, is pictured in this stock photo filed by Yonhap on Aug. 10, 2021. [YONHAP]](https://koreaseafood.online/data/photo/2025/07/28/be76d180-4457-48b7-b6e1-469b0aad6e73.jpg)
Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, is pictured in this stock photo filed by Yonhap on Aug. 10, 2021. [YONHAP]
The presidential office on Monday pushed back against North Korean official Kim Yo-jong’s remarks rejecting talks with South Korea, emphasizing that it is “closely observing the North’s position” and highlighting that the message was the “first inter-Korean statement from a senior North Korean official since the launch of the Lee Jae Myung administration.”
The response came shortly after Kim, vice department director of the North's ruling Workers’ Party and sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, issued a statement titled "The DPRK-ROK relations have gone completely beyond the time zone of the concept of homogenous."
In the statement, she declared that "that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it."
Addressing Kim’s statement, the presidential office said it was closely monitoring the North's position and acknowledged the ongoing lack of trust between the two Koreas.
The statement reaffirmed that “years of hostility and confrontation have built a high wall of distrust between the South and the North," according to the president's office.
The office reiterated that “settling peace without conflict is a firm principle of the Lee administration.”
“The government will continue to take consistent actions to realize a Korean Peninsula free from hostility and war,” the office added.
Kim also referred to recent moves by the South, including the halt of loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border, dismissing them as ineffective and self-inflicted.
"The suspension of the anti-DPRK psychological propaganda broadcasting which the ROK authorities described as the first signal for the restoration of confidence between the south and the north [...] is the scourge they have voluntarily invited," she said.
"It is the issue of themselves no matter how they settle it and is nothing but a reversible turning back of what they should not have done in the first place. In other words, it is not the work worthy of appreciation," she added.
Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
BY KIM EUN-BIN [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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