Pyongyang, August 20(HS):

North Korea has flatly dismissed South Korea’s latest call for dialogue, with Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, declaring that Seoul will “never be a diplomatic partner” as long as it continues joint military exercises with the United States.

The unusually sharp rebuke, carried by state-run KCNA on Wednesday, came just days after South Korean President Lee Jae-myung pledged to restore a suspended 2018 military accord aimed at easing tensions along the inter-Korean border. Lee’s overture was dismissed by Pyongyang as hypocritical, with Kim accusing Seoul of speaking about peace while simultaneously engaging in “reckless invasion rehearsals.”

“The Republic of Korea cannot be a diplomatic partner of the DPRK,” Kim stated, adding that Seoul’s gestures were nothing more than “a fancy and a pipe dream.”

The remarks emerged following her meeting with senior Foreign Ministry officials in Pyongyang, where she accused South Korea of harboring “decades-long ambitions for confrontation,” regardless of which political party is in power. She further denounced Lee as incapable of changing the trajectory of hostility.

Lee, who assumed office in June, has attempted to soften ties with Pyongyang after years of hardline policies from his predecessor. His government dismantled loudspeakers that had broadcast propaganda to the North and publicly assured that Seoul respects Pyongyang’s political system, ruling out forcible unification or hostile actions. Despite these assurances, he reiterated South Korea’s commitment to international denuclearization efforts and called on Pyongyang to return to dialogue with both Seoul and Washington.

But North Korea has set an uncompromising course. Just a day prior, Kim Jong Un himself denounced the ongoing U.S.-South Korea drills as “a clear will to provoke war,” while vowing to accelerate the expansion of his country’s nuclear arsenal. He was seen inspecting a warship outfitted with nuclear-capable systems—a stark symbol of Pyongyang’s growing militarization.

The rejection underscores Pyongyang’s hardened stance since abandoning its long-standing vision of peaceful unification last year, when Kim amended the constitution to codify South Korea as a “permanent enemy.” Since then, attempts at negotiations with both Seoul and Washington have repeatedly failed, with Pyongyang instead pivoting to deeper strategic and military cooperation with Moscow amid the ongoing Ukraine war.

For now, Kim Yo Jong’s declaration reinforces a grim outlook: inter-Korean relations, once cautiously optimistic under past summits, appear trapped in an entrenched cycle of mistrust, military build-up, and geopolitical brinkmanship.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar