North Korea has no interest in talks with South Korea to improve ties

Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has ruled out the possibility of talks with South Korea. The statement comes amid efforts by Seoul’s new leftist President Lee Jae-myong to improve inter-Korean relations. In a statement carried by state media on Monday (July 28), Kim Yo-jong rejected South Korean President Lee Jae-myong’s efforts to improve ties with Pyongyang. She also described steps such as the suspension of loudspeaker broadcasts along the tense inter-Korean border as “a return to something that should never have been started.” “If South Korea thinks that a few emotional words can change all previous decisions, it is a grave miscalculation,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). In addition, last month, when South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-yong expressed support for inviting Kim Jong Un to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Seoul in October, Kim Yo Jong called the Lee administration’s position a “daydream.” Kim also said that the Lee administration’s “blind faith” in the security alliance with the United States and “attempts to antagonize” Pyongyang were no different from the policies of Yun Suk-yeol’s conservative government. Kim Yo Jong made it clear that “no matter what policy Seoul adopts or what proposal it makes, we are not interested in it. There is no reason for us to meet with South Korea or discuss anything.” Last month, Lee Jae-myung, who took office as president after Yoon Suk-yeol imposed a brief military junta, has expressed a desire to improve relations between the divided Koreas. The two Koreas have been officially at war since the 1950-53 Korean War. Lee Jae-myung’s left-wing Democratic Party and its predecessors have traditionally favored closer ties with North Korea, a position that contrasts with Yoon Suk-yeol’s conservative People Power Party and its predecessors. Earlier last month, South Korea said it had returned six North Koreans whose boats had crossed the maritime border into South Korean waters earlier this year.