hankyoreh

Kim Yo-jong, deputy director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea. (Hankyoreh archives)

Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) Central Committee Deputy Director Kim Yo-jong issued a statement harshly denouncing a recent message from South Korean President Moon Jae-in for the 20th anniversary of the June 15 South-North Joint Declaration of 2000, which she called “sickening” and “a string of shameless and impudent words full of incoherence.”

On June 17, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) published a statement issued in Kim’s name earlier that day under the title “Honeyed Words of Impudent Man Are Disgusting.” Bluntly denouncing various messages delivered by Moon in his June 15 anniversary event speech and elsewhere, the statement said, “It was sickening to listen to his speech, devoid of responsibility and will before the nation and direction and measures for putting the present situation under control but packaged in self-defense, avoidance of responsibility and deep-rooted flunkeyism.”

The English translation of Kim’s statement ran for roughly 2,000 words. The first part consisted mainly of denunciations of Moon’s recent messages regarding North Korea, while the latter portion criticized Seoul’s failure to implement the content of inter-Korean agreements due to its concerns about the US’ attitude. A statement with the same content was also published the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of WPK and a domestic news outlet read daily by North Koreans.

Referring to Moon’s speech on June 15, Kim said, “He reeled off a string of shameless and impudent words full of incoherence.”

“[S]crutiny into his speeches shows that he is entirely blaming other foreign factor for the north-south ties that failed to make progress,” she added.

“He meant that the reason that the north-south ties failed to make even a step forward was because of the internal situation of south Korea itself and because of the scarcity of support from the US and the international community for it. This is just the same shameful excuse as the ‘theory of driver’ often mentioned by him in the past,” she said.

“He also said that ‘he feels great regret over the south-north ties that had not made progress as expected.’ Is it the attitude and stand to be taken by the so-called ‘state leader’ to just express vague expectation and regret?” she added.

In her statement, Kim went on to denounce the South Korea-US working group created by diplomatic officials to coordinate issues related to North Korea sanctions.

“Even before the ink on the north-south agreement got dry, he accepted the ‘south Korea-US working group’ under the coercion of his master and presented all issues related to the north-south ties to White House. This has all boomeranged,” she said.

“[H]is blind creed that ‘alliance’ must be put above the north-south agreement and the power of ‘ally’ brings peace led him to follow the path of continued submission and shameless perfidy,” she continued.

“[T]he reason that the north-south agreements which were so wonderful did not see any light of even a single step of implementation was due to the noose of the pro-US flunkeyism into which [Moon] put his neck,” she asserted.

Observing that the South Korean government had “put the absolute preconditions of ‘within the framework of sanctions’” on inter-Korean cooperation, Kim declared, “It is a tragedy produced by the persistent and deep-seated pro-US flunkeyism and submission of the south Korean authorities that the north-south ties reduced into the plaything of the US.”

By Noh Ji-won, staff reporter

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