N. Korea's Kim Yo-jong calls Lee Jae Myung's remarks 'contradictory,' says US security no longer free

Kim Yo-jong, director of the Korean Workers' Party General Affairs Department and sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, said Thursday that South Korean President Lee Jae Myung's "double-faced words and deeds" reflect Seoul's "anxious and contradictory psychology," and that "the world is witnessing the reality that US security support is no longer free."

Kim released a statement Thursday night through KCNA titled "The pitiful situation of Seoul, which has been barred from the war games it so enjoyed."

She said the Ulchi Freedom Shield — which she described as "a large-scale aggressive war rehearsal by the United States and South Korea on Korean soil" — "was hit hard the moment it began." She added that "with a single word from Donald Trump suddenly ordering a reduction in the exercises, Seoul had to fold up the war game it enjoyed most."

Kim said the scaling back of the joint exercises would be "an unprecedented 'calamity' in history" for South Korea. She said it was "the fate of a puppet army that has handed over its command authority to its master — unable to utter a word of protest even as US forces tuck their tails at the unilateral order of the American commander in chief, with no coordination between the two sides."

She then added that South Korea "entrusts its defense and security to a foreign power, yet boasts that it has more than enough ability to defend itself."

On President Lee, Kim said he had "fawningly praised Trump's decision to scale back the CPX from the front, calling it worthy of respect and a weighty decision made after much deliberation, while turning around behind closed doors to talk of self-reliant defense and independent military capability to prepare for the worst-case scenario."

She went on to say that "this sudden incident is a deserved disaster brought about by the unrealistic and anachronistic delusions and security outlook of the South Korean authorities, who — blinded by blind faith in their master — have been ceaselessly flailing about in an attempt to reshape the balance of power in a region governed by a nuclear-armed state."