Kim Jong-un says North Korea isn‘t about to sit down and talk with “mad dogs”

Posted on : 2015-02-02 18:12 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Pyongyang apparently hardening stance on the US, just as US-ROK joint military exercises are approaching
 in this image released by Korean Central News Agency on Jan. 31. (KNCA/Yonhap News)
in this image released by Korean Central News Agency on Jan. 31. (KNCA/Yonhap News)

“We are unwilling to sit down with mad dogs anymore,” said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, in response to US President Barack Obama’s remarks about the North Korean regime collapsing.

“If the American imperialists make the slightest move against our dignity, our independence, and our right to survival, the US mainland will suffer a terrifying catastrophe,” Kim also threatened.

Kim’s remarks seem meant to underline Pyongyang’s hard-line stance before the US-ROK joint military exercises, known as Key Resolve, which are scheduled to take place next month.

Kim made the remarks while participating in a military exercise that simulated a joint attack by the North Korean navy and air force on an American aircraft carrier, the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Jan. 31. In the drill, jet fighters and submarines sank the carrier in a series of bomb and torpedo attacks.

“The drill took place off the coast of Wonsan in the East Sea. Following a drill in the West [Yellow] Sea on Jan. 23, this was the second simulation of an attack targeting an American aircraft carrier,” a South Korean government source said on Feb. 1.

“We are unwilling to sit down with mad dogs anymore who keep howling that they are going to use the method of change to bring down our socialist system. We are ready to wage any kind of war, whether that war is conventional or nuclear,” Kim said during the drill.

After the US rejected the offer that North Korea made on Jan. 9 to suspend its nuclear tests in exchange for the US and South Korea canceling their joint military drills, and after US President Barack Obama mentioned the collapse of the North Korean regime, Pyongyang appears to have returned to its hard-line stance against the US.

On Feb. 1, North Korea also announced that it had invited Sung Kim, the US State Department’s special representative for North Korea policy, to visit Pyongyang, but that the US had declined the invitation. This also seems to have affected North Korea’s transition to a hard-lined stance.

“The US is trying to shift the blame for the failure of talks on us, even after ignoring our invitation. We do not feel the need to sit down with a country that is trying to eliminate the ideology and the system that North Koreans have chosen,” said the spokesperson for North Korea‘s Foreign Ministry on Sunday in an interview with a KCNA reporter.

North Korea seems to have been refuting a statement made by Special Representative for North Korea Policy Sung Kim during a press conference held in Beijing on Jan. 30. Kim implied that the US had proposed direct talks to North Korea but that he had been unable to meet North Korean officials during his visit to China.

While the US government says that it is open to dialogue with North Korea, its position is that it is too soon for Sung Kim to visit Pyongyang, reports say.

With Kim Jong-un directly emphasizing confrontation with the US and with the two sides failing to find common ground on the idea of dialogue, it seems likely that chilly relations will continue for some time.

North Korea could respond to the US-ROK joint military exercises by ratcheting up its military activity around the time of the drills.

“The military crisis on the Korean peninsula will peak during April, when the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises come to an end. North Korea will respond by mobilizing its available resources, including its short- and medium-range missiles,” said Chang Yong-seok, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University.

These circumstances could also have a negative effect on inter-Korean relations, which are stuck at the threshold of efforts to organize talks between South and North.

 

By Son Won-je, staff reporter

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