Since his election, South Korea’s President has tried reverse the hardline stance of his predecessor towards Pyongyang

Officials wave as South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and first lady Kim Hea Kyung depart Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, South Korea, in June. Photo / Jintak Han, the Washington Post

The North Korean leader’s influential sister, Kim Yo Jong, dismissed efforts by South Korea’s new president to improve relations and said there is no interest in restarting talks with Seoul, in the first remarks directed at the South’s Administration that took office last month.

Since his election, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has tried to show his new liberal government is reversing course from his conservative predecessor’s hardline stance towards Pyongyang.

For example, in an effort to ease tensions, Lee ordered activists to stop sending anti-North Korea leaflets across the border and suspended loudspeakers along the demilitarised zone blasting anti-North Korean propaganda and K-pop music.

Seoul even suggested that leader Kim Jong Un may be able to attend an international economic conference in South Korea this autumn.

But Kim Yo Jong, who frequently speaks on her brother’s behalf, rebuffed what she called meaningless “sweet remarks” by Lee and his officials.

She added that South Korean officials were “spinning a daydream” over the potential invitation to the conference.

She challenged South Korea’s “blind trust” in its alliance with the United States, saying it makes the new government no different from the previous one.

“We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither the reason to meet nor the issue to be discussed with” South Korea, Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried in state media.

She cited the upcoming joint drills between the US and South Korea next month.

The drills, which the allies say are defensive in nature, have long been an irritant for the North Korean regime, which views them as hostile and practices for invasion.

Under previous US and South Korean administrations, the allies suspended or scaled back their drills as they worked to engage North Korea through diplomacy and denuclearisation talks. Those talks collapsed in 2019.

In 2022, under the conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, the US and South Korean militaries resumed large-scale field exercises.

Following Kim’s remarks, South Korea’s new Unification Minister, Chung Dong Young, told reporters he plans to propose adjusting the military drills scheduled for mid-August.

Relations between the two Koreas deteriorated under Yoon, who hewed closely with Washington and emphasised military co-operation and strengthening deterrence efforts with the US.

Lee has said it is important for South Korea to strengthen its security alliance with the US and has said he would co-operate with both Washington and Tokyo. But he has also said he wants to improve relations with Pyongyang.

President Donald Trump has also expressed interest in re-engaging in talks with Kim Jong Un, as he did in his first term.

However, North Korea has become one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s staunchest supporters since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and analysts say it is unclear whether Pyongyang has much interest in engaging with Trump again.

In January 2024, North Korea also took a major step of declaring South Korea an enemy state and formally abandoning the nation’s long-standing principle of peacefully reunifying the two halves of the peninsula.

The North Korean regime began removing and blowing up symbolic references to reunification, including monuments and roads connecting the two Koreas.

Kim Yo Jong reiterated that the relationship between the two nations has changed irreversibly.

“No matter how desperately the Lee Jae Myung Government may … pretend they do all sorts of righteous things to attract our attention and receive international attention, there can be no change in our state’s understanding of the enemy,” she said.

“And they cannot turn back the hands of the clock of the history, which has radically changed the character of inter-Korean relations.”