Kim's sister warns South Korea to avoid defectors from scattering anti-North leaflets
04 June, 2020
The sister of North Korea’s leader has warned South Korea to stop defectors from sending leaflets in to the demilitarized zone separating the countries, saying it could cancel a recently available bilateral military agreement if the experience persists.
Kim Yo Jong, who serves unofficially as Kim Jong Un's chief of staff, issued the warning in a statement carried by state news agency KCNA on Thursday (Jun 4).
She was discussing a large number of "anti-DPRK leaflets" recently dumped along the North's side of the heavily fortified DMZ titled Defectors from the North.
DPRK, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, may be the North’s official name.
"If this act of evil intention committed before our eyes is left to take its own course under the pretext of 'freedom of individuals' and 'freedom of expression', the South Korean authorities must face the worst phase shortly," the KCNA statement said.
Responding to the North Korean statement, a spokesman for South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, needed a halt to the leaflet operations.
Sending leaflets increases tensions with North Korea, poses environmental risks and endangers private property, ministry spokesman Yoh Sang-key said at a regular briefing.
"The government has taken measures to avoid leafletting many times," he said.
Kim Yo Jong warned of the possible scrapping of the inter-Korean military agreement that promised to eradicate practical threats of war therefore of the clandestine leafletting.
The military pact reached in 2018 was "hardly of any value", she said.
She also warned the North will completely withdraw from the Kaesong professional project and shut down the joint liaison office in the North’s border city, unless Seoul stopped such actions.
The KCNA report did not select any individuals for blame in the leafletting. But Kim Yo Jong's comments come after a former North Korean diplomat and another North Korean defector won parliamentary seats in South Korea's general election in April.
Kim Yo Jong has been the most obvious occurrence around her brother during the past 2 yrs. She serves formally as a vice-director of the ruling Workers’ Party’s powerful Central Committee.
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