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Kim Jong-un’s influential sister launched a sharp verbal attack on South Korea’s foreign minister for questioning North Korea’s claims that the country does not have a single case of Covid-19.
Kim Yo-jong, the North Korean leader’s younger sister, described Kang Kyung-wha’s comments as “reckless” and accused her of trying to damage the already strained ties between Pyongyang and Seoul.
Kang said last weekend that it was hard to believe North Korea’s insistence that it was free of the coronavirus a year after the outbreak began.
It’s impossible to verify North Korea’s claims, but experts have said the country is highly unlikely to have escaped the virus, despite tightening its borders and banning international air travel in late January.
Kim Yo-jong said in a statement released by the official KCNA news agency on Wednesday: “It can be seen from the reckless comments made by [Kang] without considering the consequences that it is too eager to further cool the frozen relations between North and South Korea. “
Kim, a senior official in the ruling Workers’ Party whom some describe as the de facto second-in-command of the regime, added: “His true intention is very clear. We will never forget your words and you may have to pay a high price for it. “
Kang said at a forum in Bahrain on Saturday that the pandemic had “made North Korea more North Korea, that is, a more closed, top-down decision-making process where there is very little debate about his measures to deal with it. with Covid-19 “. .
She added: “They still say they don’t have any cases, which is hard to believe. So all the signs are that the regimen is very focused on controlling the disease they say they don’t have. “
North Korea is known to have taken drastic measures to prevent an outbreak and save its fragile health infrastructure. It closed its borders with China and Russia and sent diplomats home. Tens of thousands of people have been quarantined as the country tries to isolate what it has described as “suspicious” cases.
The drop in trade across its border with China has damaged the North’s fragile economy, which was already suffering the consequences of international sanctions imposed in response to its missile and nuclear weapons programs.
The North has admitted that it faces “multiple crises” due to the pandemic, as well as a series of natural disasters last summer, and US-led sanctions.
Last week, KCNA said the country had imposed “first-class emergency measures” on Pyongyang, including closing restaurants and other public places, and restrictions on the movement of people around the capital.
Relations between the two Koreas have deteriorated this year after a series of incidents along its heavily armed border.
In June, the North blew up a liaison office set up to improve communications with the South in a row over defectors’ plans to send anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border.
In September, Kim Jong-un issued a rare public apology after North Korean soldiers shot dead a South Korean official who had crossed the countries’ maritime border, possibly in an attempt to defect.
The South Korean intelligence agency claimed last month that it had thwarted attempts by North Korean hackers to disrupt attempts to develop a Covid-19 vaccine.
