DPRK's Kim Yo Jong warns US against 'foolish act'
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The DPRK has recently accused US spy planes of hovering over its exclusive economic zone.
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Kim Yo Jong during a wreath-laying ceremony at Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi, Vietnam on March 2, 2019 (AP)
Kim Yo Jong, the Deputy Department Director of the Publicity and Information Department of the Workers' Party of Korea, warned the United States on Monday against any "foolish act" that would jeopardize its security and dismissed offers of negotiations as a ruse, according to state news agency KCNA.
Kim's remarks came after the White House expressed its concern that the country might conduct another intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test after it fired an ICBM off its east coast last week.
The DPRK fired a ballistic missile, Seoul's military said Wednesday, two days after US spy planes violated its airspace.
"North Korea fired an unidentified ballistic missile into the East Sea," the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, in reference to the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan.
According to the agency, Kim stated that "the U.S. should stop its foolish act of provoking the DPRK even by imperiling its security."
She blasted the US intentions to send a nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine to South Korea, claiming that such measures to boost "extended deterrence" would simply drive Pyongyang farther away from the negotiating table.
Kim, a strong ruling party leader, also dismissed US requests for unconditional negotiations, saying that Washington was mistaken if it assumed DPRK could disarm.
"It is a daydream for the U.S. to think that it can stop the advance of the DPRK and, furthermore, achieve irreversible disarmament through the interim suspension of joint military exercises, halt to the deployment of strategic assets, and the reversible sanction relief," Kim asserted.
On July 10, the DPRK accused the United States of repeatedly violating its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) with a military spy plane. The deputy head of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, Kim Yo Jong, stated that the US plane entered the DPRK's EEZ eight times in a single day.
The intrusions reportedly occurred off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, specifically near Thongchon in Kangwon Province and Uljin in North Gyeongsang Province. Kim Yo Jong stated that the DPRK would not respond directly to US reconnaissance activities outside its EEZ but warned of "decisive action" if the US military crosses its maritime military demarcation line.
It is worth noting that Washington has been deploying reconnaissance planes and drones that violate the DPRK's airspace, while Pyongyang has exercised restraint by not targeting the aircraft.
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