Kim Yo Jong Grows More Vocal, Issues Foreign Affairs Statements Two Days in a Row, Rebuking South Korea-U.S.-Japan Cooperation and the IAEA

[Financial News] With the United Nations General Assembly in September expected to discuss peace on the Korean Peninsula, Kim Yo Jong, director of the General Affairs Department of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and North Korea's main channel for statements on external affairs, has grown increasingly vocal. Kim Jong Un's younger sister has already issued two statements on external affairs this week alone, pushing back against international pressure on North Korea. Her statements appear to be aimed largely at responding to expectations that North Korea's issues will be raised at the United Nations General Assembly this month.
The 81st UN General Assembly, scheduled to be held at UN headquarters in New York on the 22nd (local time), is expected to bring discussions on a peace regime and denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula to the forefront. The session is set to feature successive speeches by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and U.S. President Donald Trump, along with a series of summit meetings among leaders of major countries. It is expected to become a decisive turning point for the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on the 18th, Kim Yo Jong referred in a statement the previous day to the U.S.-led Pacific Vanguard 2026 and condemned it as "yet another threatening war game devised entirely by the United States to foment bloc confrontation in the region." She also listed other U.S.-led military exercises, including Cobra Gold, Pitch Black, RIMPAC and Super Garuda Shield, expressing displeasure that they pursue "impure objectives." In particular, she pointed out that South Korea and Japan participate in all of these joint military exercises without exception.
She also claimed that North Korea is the primary target of trilateral military cooperation among South Korea, the United States and Japan. She said that the United States' hegemonic, reckless and provocative actions were causing a vicious cycle of escalating tensions to repeat.
Kim Yo Jong signaled that North Korea would respond to the trilateral exercises. She emphasized, "The greater the external threats to our national security, the more our physical power will inevitably be strengthened without letup, in direct proportion to those threats."
Kim Yo Jong said, "There will be no change of course whatsoever as we continue along the path of advancing our nuclear war deterrent." She had previously responded to the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) call for North Korea's denuclearization by repeatedly asserting the legitimacy of its nuclear status, saying, "The status of a nuclear-armed state cannot be reversed by anything."
According to the KCNA the previous day, Kim Yo Jong pushed back against the IAEA's recent 70th General Conference, where it pointed out that North Korea was violating United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions and called for "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization" (CVID), dismissing the demand as "the same old nonsense."
She went on to claim, "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) status as a nuclear-armed state is absolute and cannot be reversed by anything."
[email protected] Kim Kyung-soo Reporter