North Korea open to closer ties with Seoul, formal end to Korean war is ‘admirable idea’: Kim Yo-jong
- Kim Jong-un’s powerful sister says a formal end to the 1950-53 conflict is on the cards if South Korea, US drop ‘double-dealing attitudes’ over the North’s ‘right to self defence’
- Analysts say the announcements are a sign Pyongyang wants Seoul to persuade Washington to soften its stance on denuclearisation and sanctions
The South Korean president on Thursday reiterated the call he made at the UN General Assembly earlier this week for a formal end to the 1950-53 conflict. Fighting ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically in a state of war.
“We have willingness to keep our close contacts with the South again, and have constructive discussions with it about the restoration and development of bilateral relations if it is careful about its future language and not hostile toward us,” Kim Yo-jong said, according to the Pyongyang-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
“[In the past, South Korea] often provoked us and made far-fetched assertions to find fault with anything done by us out of double-dealing standards,” she said. “The declaration of the termination of the war is an interesting and admirable idea that in it itself is meant to put a physical end to the unstable state of ceasefire.”
She urged the South and the United States to drop “double-dealing attitudes, illogical prejudice, bad habits, and the hostile stance” of justifying their own military acts while faulting the North’s exercising “of the right to self-defence”.
