Kim Yo-jong slams Lee government's North Korea policy, threatens loudspeaker broadcasts

Kim Yo-jong, a senior official of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, sharply condemned the Lee Jae Myung government's North Korea policy Monday and said Pyongyang is considering resuming loudspeaker broadcasts toward the South.

KCNA carried a statement by Kim that day under the title "We Do Not Speak of Defending Sovereignty in Words."

"The situation along the southern border is very unstable," Kim said. "A grim situation is being created along the southern border line by the reckless bravado of South Korean military gangsters."

Kim said that when South Korean forces issue warning broadcasts and warning shots in response to North Korean troops crossing the MDL during what Pyongyang calls its "border fortification" work, it threatens the safety of North Korean soldiers and inflames tensions.

She described South Korean loudspeaker warning broadcasts as "provocations" and dismissed Seoul's determination that the MDL had been crossed as "groundless fault-finding."

"From Aug. 1 through Oct. 17, the enemy carried out no fewer than 2,870 loudspeaker warning broadcast provocations and 201 warning shots," Kim said, adding that "such harassment by the enemy has become increasingly brazen and crossed all limits since they fabricated the 'self-staged landmine explosion' scheme."

She went on to say that the most frequent loudspeaker warning broadcasts were occurring at outposts in the areas of the Army's II Corps' 7th and 15th Infantry Divisions and III Corps' 21st and 22nd Infantry Divisions, while warning shots were most heavily concentrated at the III Corps' 21st Infantry Division's DMZ Military Police Post 278. From Oct. 1 through Oct. 17 alone, she said, loudspeaker warning broadcast provocations numbered 998 and warning shots reached 91.

She said South Korean forces simultaneously carried out more than 350 loudspeaker warning broadcasts and more than 60 warning shots across multiple areas along the southern border from Thursday through Saturday — actions she characterized as a serious escalation.

"In response to the current situation, our military leadership is reviewing, as a preemptive and suppressive measure, the question of reinforcing and redeploying tactical strike assets along the entire southern border in preparation for any contingency, as well as the question of resuming loudspeaker broadcasts toward South Korea, and is also considering additional measures deemed necessary and appropriate," Kim said.

She also said that "the anti-republic confrontational schemes of the Lee Jae Myung government — which from the early days of its rule presented itself as advocating 'reconciliation' and 'peace' and projecting a 'conciliatory image' — far surpass those of the Yoon Suk Yeol government, a vicious conservative regime that openly stoked anti-communism."