UN ‘rabble’ for double standards: Yo Jong

North Korea launches ‘monster missile’ and warns of toughest counteraction

SEOUL: The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un slammed the UN Security Council for double standards after it convened a meeting over Pyongyang’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, state media said last week.

Kim Jong Un’s sister, Yo Jong, accused the UNSC of turning “blind eyes to the very dangerous military drills” of Seoul and Washington and “their greedy arms buildup”.

“This is evidently the application of double-standards,” she said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The North fired an ICBM on November 18 in one of its most powerful tests yet, prompting the Security Council to convene an open meeting in New York. A divided Security Council slammed recent launch but stopped short of issuing a formal statement because of opposition from China and Russia.

The United States, Britain, France, India and Australia were among the 14 Security Council members to strongly condemn the launch of the ICBM, which landed about 200 kilometres (120 miles) from Japan’s coastline.

The 14 signatories said in a joint statement the latest launch was a serious escalation “and poses an unequivocal threat to international peace and security”.

Kim Yo Jong called the statement “disgusting” and described the 14 signatories as “rabbles”.

She said the United States, which she likened to “a barking dog seized with fear”, was pushing the Korean peninsula towards a new crisis and warned of “the toughest counteraction”.

“The more hell-bent it gets on the anti-DPRK acts, it will face a more fatal security crisis,” Kim Yo Jong said, using the North’s official name of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Kim Jong Un supervised the launch, which KCNA said was a Hwasong-17 — dubbed by analysts as the “monster missile”.

The missile flew 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) at an altitude of 6,100 km, South Korea’s military said, only slightly less than the ICBM Pyongyang fired on March 24, which appeared to be the North’s most powerful such test yet.

The launch was the latest in Pyongyang’s record-breaking blitz of launches in recent weeks.

Pyongyang and Moscow have repeatedly blamed them on Washington’s moves to boost the protection it offers to allies Seoul and Tokyo.

Officials and analysts in Seoul and Washington say the launches may build up to a seventh nuclear test.

The UN Security Council has passed nearly a dozen resolutions imposing sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and missile activity since 2006.

Idiot South Korean president

Yo Jong has described South Korea’s president and government as “idiots” and a “faithful dog” of the United States, state media reported.

Kim Yo Jong’s vitriol follows Seoul this week saying it was considering fresh unilateral sanctions on the North over recent missile tests, including an intercontinental ballistic missile launch last week.

“This disgusting act shows more clearly that the south Korean group is a ‘faithful dog’ and stooge of the US,” Kim said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“I wonder what ‘sanctions’ the South Korean group, no more than a running wild dog on a bone given by the US, impudently impose on the DPRK,” she said, using the acronym of the North’s official name. “What a spectacle sight!”

Pyongyang always refers to South Korea with a lowercase “s”, an apparent sign of disrespect.

Kim accused South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol of creating a “dangerous situation” and compared him unfavourably to his more dovish predecessor Moon Jae-in, under whom, she said, Seoul “had not been our target”.

“I wonder why the south Korean people still remain a passive onlooker to such acts of the ‘government’ of Yoon Suk Yeol and other idiots,” she said.

North Korea tends to issue statements before carrying out a provocation, Professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul said, adding: “There may be an armed demonstration against South Korea and the United States soon.”

North Korea has a long history of colourful personal attacks against foreign leaders, and analysts have often noted the country’s failure to use “diplomatic language”.

“Basically, they can’t speak well of the countries they consider enemies,” said Go Myong-hyun, a researcher at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

Before US President Joe Biden was nominated as a candidate, Pyongyang called him “a rabid dog” that “must be beaten to death with a stick” and famously referred to his predecessor Donald Trump as a “mentally deranged US dotard”.