Back off if you want to sleep easy: North Korea leader Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, warns US

North Korea leader Kim Jong-un’s influential younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, says the age of summits and diplomacy is over.

Kim Yo-jong, powerful sister of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un. Picture: Jorge Silva/AFP

The sister of Kim Jong-un has warned the United States not to “spread the smell of gunpowder”, in the regime’s first significant challenge to the Biden administration.

Kim Yo-jong, the influential younger sister of the North Korean leader, said on Tuesday that the age of summits and diplomacy was over, even as two senior US ministers embarked on a round of diplomacy in Asia. Antony Blinken, secretary of state, and Lloyd Austin, Defence Secretary, met their Japanese counterparts in Tokyo before flying to South Korea, where they were expected to discuss strategy towards the North.

Rocket launchers fire during a test of weapons in an undisclosed location in North Korea. Picture: AFP

“A word of advice to the new administration of the United States that is struggling to spread the smell of gunpowder on our land from across the ocean,” Kim said, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. “If you wish to sleep well for the next four years, it would be better not to create work from the start that will make you lose sleep.”

The warning underlines the transformation that took place in the four years that Donald Trump was in the White House, when North Korea tested a hydrogen bomb and an intercontinental ballistic missile that has the potential to reach the US mainland.

Kim’s words were part of a tirade against the government of South Korea for taking part in exercises with the US military. The allies insist that the annual drills are defensive in nature and that they are greatly reduced this year because of the pandemic. Pyongyang, however, says they are a preparation for invasion.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un, left, and his sister Kim Yo-jong, right. Picture: STR/Korea Summit Press Pool/AFP

Kim linked the exercises to the failure of talks that began amid rising optimism in 2018, leading to three meetings between Trump and her brother. “Whatever the South Korean authorities may do in the future at the order of their master [the US], it will be not so easy to enjoy again such a warm spring day as the one three years ago.”

She threatened to dissolve a North Korean government body responsible for diplomacy with the South and hinted at doing away with a similar organisation that deals with a joint tourism zone. “We needn’t discuss anything with such silly guys,” she said.

Blinken and Austin promised in a joint article this week to rebuild friendships strained by the unpredictability of Trump, but indicated that Biden’s government would maintain a tough attitude towards China. “A fundamental debate is under way about the future and whether democracy or autocracy offers the best path forward,” they said. “It’s up to us and other democracies to come together and show the world that we can deliver, for our people and for each other.”

Last week the US and South Korea settled heated negotiations begun by Trump on the amount of money that Seoul will contribute towards having 28,000 US troops stationed in the country, as part of its defence against North Korea. The figure has not been announced but is likely to be much lower than the five-fold increase demanded by Trump.

The Times