SEOUL, Sept. 18 (Yonhap) -- Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, on Friday condemned a U.S.-led multinational maritime exercise as a "war game" and vowed to "intensify the nuclear war deterrence." She made the remarks in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), days after the multilateral naval exercise Pacific Vanguard, involving U.S. allies, including South Korea and Japan, wrapped up its 13-day run last week.
"During the war rehearsal, various naval training for U.S.-centered anti-warship, anti-air and anti-submarine warfare was staged intensively for more than ten days," Kim said. "This was another threatening 'war game' invented by the U.S. for inter-camp confrontation in the region."
"This is a part of the U.S. political and military design to prolong its hegemony by relying on the military strength of the exclusive camp in the Asia-Pacific region where there are many big powers regarded as its major rivals," she added.
Kim also criticized the participation of South Korea and Japan, framing it as evidence of a "tripartite military cooperation system" aimed at North Korea. "It is inevitable that outsiders' greater threat to our national security makes our physical power grow stronger ceaselessly in a corresponding manner," she said, adding that North Korea needs to "break records in our responsive action, proportional or more offensive in its nature." "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 warned.
North Korea's military, she said, "will invoke the relevant provisions true to their constitutional obligations and mobilize all means available to cope with it."
The statement marked the second official statement from Kim in two days, following a statement issued the previous day in which she dismissed calls for North Korea's denuclearization made at the 70th regular session of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference, currently under way in Vienna, Austria.
