Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of Kim Jong-un and the Labor Party director general, lashed out at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum (ARF) chair's statement that specified "the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."
On the 27th, Director General Kim said in a statement released through the Korean Central News Agency that the ARF chair's statement was "a pitiful beyond words chair's statement that babbles about 'the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,'" adding that North Korea's nuclear capability "will be constantly updated without a moment's stagnation."
Earlier, at the ARF foreign ministers' meeting that concluded on the 25th, representatives of Indo-Pacific countries expressed deep concern over North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and missiles. They then adopted a chair's statement urging the parties concerned to fully implement the U.N. Security Council sanctions and to come to the table for dialogue toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The statement included, as it did last year, the phrase "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."
In response, Director General Kim expressed strong displeasure, calling it an act that completely ignored the constitution, North Korea's supreme norm. She said, "Clinging still to 'denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula' is a failure of strategic thinking and logic and the manifestation of a foolish and silly delusion," stressing, "No existing situation will ever change according to the rhetoric or 'hopes' of any external force."
Director General Kim went on, saying, "Nuclear deterrence is the ultimate shield of national sovereignty and the highest collateral for defending national authority," and "As a responsible nuclear-armed state that guarantees the balance of power and provides for geopolitical stability, the position and raison d'être of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea are final and irreversible."