South Korea’s SEOUL (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said again Friday that he doesn’t want to negotiate with South Korea and that the North would destroy its rival if it was pushed. This is the latest of Kim Jong Un’s hostile comments that are making things worse in the region.
Thursday, Kim spoke at a visit to North Korea’s Defence Ministry. He said that his recent actions to cut ties with South Korea allow his military to be more bold “by securing lawfulness to strike and destroy (the South) whenever triggered.”
In the past few months, tensions on the Korean Peninsula have grown. Kim has increased his threats and shows of weapons, and in response, the US, South Korea, and Japan have stepped up their joint military drills.
Most South Korean officials and experts have played down the idea that Kim really wants to start a war. However, worries about a direct military threat have grown because the North may be trying to put more pressure on South Korea and the US during an election year.
Kim told the North’s official news agency, the Korean Central News Agency, that he spoke out to“shake off the unrealistic pretense of dialogue and cooperation with the (South) Korean puppets who sought the collapse of our republic.” The news agency said Kim went to the ministry with his daughter, who is thought to be named Kim Ju Ae. Some experts think she is being trained to be a future boss.
A few weeks before, Kim Jong Un told his parliament that North Korea was giving up on its long-term goal of peaceful union with South Korea and ordered that the country’s constitution be changed to make the South its most dangerous foreign enemy.
Since then, the North has shut down government offices that dealt with the South, destroyed a major monument to unification, and gotten rid of laws that had controlled past business deals with the South.
Experts say that Kim’s efforts to change his relationship with the South come at a time when he is testing a lot of weapons that could be nuclear, aimed at rivals in the South and the US. They say that Kim wants to silence Seoul and eventually force direct talks with Washington over the nuclear standoff. His long-term goal is to get the US to agree with the idea of the North as a nuclear power so that he can make security and economic deals while being strong.
Other experts say Kim might want to make things worse with South Korea so his people in North Korea still feel like they are under attack from outside their country. Kim’s government has recently stepped up efforts to keep his people from being influenced by South Korean pop culture and language. He may see this as a way to strengthen the North’s national character and keep his family’s dynastic rule going.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said in a pre-recorded interview that aired Monday that Kim’s government is acting in a “irrational” way by aggressively adding to North Korea’s collection of nuclear weapons and missiles, which is putting more stress on the country’s already broken economy.
Yoon said,“We need to keep that in mind as we prepare to counter their security threats or provocations, preparing not just for actions based on rational judgments but also actions based on irrational conclusions,”
Source – AP news
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