FILE - This photo provided by the North Korean government, Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, delivers a speech during a national meeting against the coronavirus, in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Aug. 10, 2022. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)
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The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un rebuffed an appeasement overture by South Korea’s new liberal government, saying on Monday that North Korea has no interest in talks with South Korea, no matter what proposal its rival offers.
Kim Yo Jong’s comments suggest again that North Korea, now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia, has no intentions of returning to diplomacy with South Korea and the US anytime soon.

But experts said North Korea could change its course if it thinks it cannot maintain the same booming ties with Russia when the Russia-Ukraine war nears an end.

FILE - This photo provided by the North Korean government, Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, delivers a speech during a national meeting against the coronavirus, in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Aug. 10, 2022. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)
Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, delivers a speech during a national meeting on August 10 in 2022.(KCNA/Reuters/File via CNN Newsource)

Kim Yo Jong called such steps “sincere efforts” by Lee’s government to develop ties.

But she said the Lee government won’t be much different from its predecessors, citing what it calls “their blind trust” to the military alliance with the US and attempt to “stand in confrontation” with North Korea.

She mentioned the upcoming summertime South Korea-US military drills, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.

North Korea has been shunning talks with South Korea and the US since leader Kim Jong Un’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019 due to wrangling over international sanctions.

North Korea has since focused on building more powerful nuclear weapons targeting its rivals.

North Korea now prioritises cooperation with Russia by sending troops and conventional weapons to support its war against Ukraine, likely in return for economic and military assistance.

South Korea, the US and others say Russia may even give North Korea sensitive technologies that can enhance its nuclear and missile programs.

Since beginning his second term in January, Trump has repeatedly boasted of his personal ties with Kim Jong Un and expressed intent to resume diplomacy with him.

But North Korea hasn’t publicly responded to Trump’s overture.

In early 2024, Kim Jong Un ordered the rewriting of the constitution to remove the long-running state goal of a peaceful Korean unification and cement South Korea as an “invariable principal enemy.”

That caught many foreign experts by surprise because it was seen as eliminating the idea of shared statehood between the war-divided Koreas and breaking away with his predecessors’ long-cherished dreams of peacefully achieving a unified Korea on the North’s terms.

Many experts say Kim likely aims to guard against South Korean cultural influence and bolster his family’s dynastic rule.

Others say Kim wants legal room to use his nuclear weapons against South Korea by making it as a foreign enemy state, not a partner for potential unification which shares a sense of national homogeneity.

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