Vienna: Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, on Thursday rejected international calls for denuclearization as "all noises," calling the regime's nuclear status "absolute."
According to Yonhap News Agency, she made the remarks in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) as the 70th regular session of the IAEA General Conference is currently under way in Vienna, Austria. The conference has voiced concern over North Korea's expanding nuclear capacity, urging Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Ahead of the session, the agency released the IAEA Director General's Safeguards Report on North Korea, detailing a substantial increase in Pyongyang's uranium enrichment capacity and the expansion of its core nuclear facilities.
Kim Yo-jong dismissed the calls as "all noises, not surprising and not new." She stated that no matter how the IAEA and the West may hold periodic meetings and discuss denuclearization, they cannot affect North Korea's resolve to defend its interests. She emphasized that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) status as a nuclear weapons state is settled both physically and legally and cannot be reversed.
She concluded by asserting that no entity can reverse the changes in the strength and position of the DPRK or prevent them in the future.