The Blue House on the 21st addressed a mocking statement by Kim Yo-jong, North Korea's Workers' Party General Affairs Department director, who called South Korea's military a "scarecrow" and the South Korea-U.S. relationship a "master-servant relationship," saying, "The government will consistently pursue a policy of peaceful coexistence on the Korean Peninsula based on mutual respect."
In a statement that day, the Blue House said, "As a party to peace on the Korean Peninsula, the government will continue close coordination with the United States and, as a pacemaker, will also make active efforts to resume North Korea-U.S. talks."
It also addressed Kim Yo-jong's direct mention of President Lee Jae-myung, criticizing him with phrases such as "two-faced words and deeds" and "anxious and nervous contradictory psychology," saying, "Derogatory language toward our government and the president does not help build mutual trust," and added, "We urge the North to stop unnecessary slander and move together toward peaceful coexistence on the Korean Peninsula."
Earlier, on the night before, Kim Yo-jong issued a statement through the Korean Central News Agency, referring to the reduction of South Korea-U.S. joint exercises under the instruction of U.S. President Donald Trump, and said, "At a single word from Trump, Seoul was put in the pitiful position of having to fold up its favorite 'war game.'"
She went on, "It is precisely the fate of a scarecrow army that has entrusted its command authority to its master that, following the unilateral order of the U.S. commander in chief and without any coordination between both sides, cannot utter even a word of protest when U.S. forces tuck their tail."
She also said, "A country whose national security is shaken to its core by a single reduction of a joint military drill is the very reality of South Korea, which hands over defense and security to foreign powers yet flatters itself that it 'has more than enough ability to defend itself,'" and added, "It is the inevitable disaster brought about by South Korea's unrealistic and anachronistic delusions and security view, which, mired in blind faith in its master, kept making a fuss without pause about trying to change the balance of power in a region controlled by a nuclear-armed state."