The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned that efforts by the U.S. to strengthen its extended deterrence against the country will only push it farther away from the negotiating table.

In a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Monday, Kim Yo-jong said that the U.S. must know that moves to strengthen its extended deterrence and military alliance with South Korea would only make it difficult for Pyongyang to engage in dialogue.

Kim made the remarks while criticizing the U.S.’ recent deployment of a strategic nuclear bomber to the Korean Peninsula, surveillance flights by aircraft, a planned inaugural meeting of the South Korea-U.S. Nuclear Consultative Group and Washington’s plan to deploy a nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine to the South.

Kim said that the U.S. should stop its “foolish act” of provoking North Korea even while imperiling its security, while also rejecting calls for unconditional talks and saying that Washington is wrong to believe that the disarmament of the North is possible.

Dismissing the calls as a ploy to hinder North Korea's progress, Kim said that the U.S. is delusional if it believes that it can stop the country’s advance and achieve irreversible disarmament by temporarily suspending joint military exercises, halting the deployment of strategic assets or easing sanctions. 

Kim said that the U.S. wants the North to seek complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization, but everything it can offer is changeable and reversible such as withdrawing U.S. troops in South Korea and suspending it from a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

[Photo : KBS News]