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Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, accused the U.S. of escalating regional tensions through repeated military exercises and warned that Pyongyang could respond with measures that are “proportional or more offensive,” state media KCNA reported Friday.
Kim said recent joint drills involving U.S. forces and allies in the Asia-Pacific region showed what she described as growing hostility toward North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK.
“The present situation, in which new records are set in terms of practical action hostile toward the DPRK, stresses the need to break records in our responsive action, proportional or more offensive in its nature,” KCNA quoted her as saying.
Kim described the joint exercises held in recent months as a “U.S.-led war rehearsal” and said North Korea would continue strengthening what it calls its nuclear war deterrence.
“Our will to defend our sovereignty will be expressed in clearer action and there will be never ever change in the course of intensifying the nuclear war deterrence,” she said.
Kim also warned that North Korea’s military could take broader action if Pyongyang concluded that its national interests, military sovereignty or regional security environment had been seriously threatened by military exercises.
She said the military would “mobilize all means available” to respond if such a situation arose.
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