North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister said frequent U.S. military drills were escalating tensions in the region and threatened a “proportional or more offensive” response from Pyongyang.
Friday’s statement comes despite U.S. President Donald Trump seeking to revive diplomacy with North Korea in recent months.
“The present situation, in which new records are set in terms of practical action hostile toward the DPRK, stresses the need to break records in our responsive action, proportional or more offensive in its nature,” Kim Yo Jong said.
Her statement responded to Pacific Vanguard 2026, a naval exercise near Guam that ran from August 29 to September 10. Forces from the United States, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand took part. She described the exercises as a “U.S.-led war rehearsal” and said North Korea’s forces would “mobilize all means available” if its security were violated.
A day earlier, Kim Yo Jong rejected denuclearization as the International Atomic Energy Agency met in Vienna. The DPRK’s standing as a nuclear weapons state is “absolute which can not reverse with anything,” she said.
Trump said on August 20 that Pyongyang possesses 57 “very powerful” nuclear weapons. Seoul’s defense minister put the figure at 80 to 120. The arsenal has grown since the second Trump–Kim summit collapsed in 2019 over what Pyongyang would get for steps toward denuclearization.
Kim Yo Jong’s comments highlight the difficulty facing renewed U.S. efforts to engage Pyongyang. Trump ordered last month’s U.S.–South Korean Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises to be scaled back. Yet she answered by attacking a different exercise, and North Korea continues to portray U.S.-led drills as a justification for strengthening its nuclear capabilities. Pyongyang has rejected denuclearization and warned of a more offensive military response in the same week. Any renewed negotiations would begin from a different strategic position than the Trump–Kim summits of 2018 and 2019. (AFP+EIR)
