The sister of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un said Pyongyang had no interest in engaging with Seoul. Kim Yo Jong dismissed the steps taken by the new South Korean government as insufficient to change the situation on the Korean Peninsula. 

“We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither the reason to meet nor the issue to be discussed with the ROK,” Kim said, according to North Korean state media. 

She acknowledged that the new South Korean government ended some propaganda operations aimed at North Koreans, but said it was not “worthy of appreciation.” 

“As for 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.” Kim continued, “All this is the scourge they have voluntarily invited and thus 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.”

She added, “In other words, it is not the work worthy of appreciation.”

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung was elected earlier this year. Lee said he would continue past diplomatic efforts made by liberal South Korean presidents.

Kim dismissed that political change in Seoul will change the relationship between North and South Korea. “When only the 50-odd days since Lee Jae Myung’s assumption to power are brought to light, leaving aside the past history of the successive regimes of the ROK, the ROK authorities made such sweet remarks as defusing tension on the Korean peninsula and improving the DPRK-ROK relations,” she explained. “But their blind trust to the ROK-U.S. alliance and their attempt to stand in confrontation with the DPRK are little short of their predecessor’s.”