North Korean state media claimed on Monday that it had ordered its military to be “fully ready to open fire” on its border with South Korea following an active weekend of feverish threats against Seoul coming from the very top of the communist regime: Kim Jong-un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo-jong.
Kim Yo-jong published a statement alongside the North Korean Foreign Ministry on Friday claiming that the government of South Korea had launched a drone into the country and successfully reached Pyongyang. Kim hinted at the potential of nuclear retaliation and published multiple screeds in state media throughout the weekend reacting angrily to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) denying that the nation’s military was responsible for the alleged drone in Pyongyang.
The South Korean military also irately noted that Pyongyang has repeatedly violated South Korean airspace with its own drones, a fact notably omitted from its state media coverage.
Tensions between North and South Korea have soared during the administration of leftist American President Joe Biden, which, despite nearing its end, never developed a coherent policy on the Korean Peninsula. Rather than embracing denuclearization, as Pyongyang did during the term of Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, Kim recently outlawed denuclearization in its entirely and has repeatedly called for an “exponential increase” in the size of North Korea’s illegal nuclear weapons arsenal. This spring, North Korea began a campaign of littering the South with hundreds of balloons full of trash and feces, continuing into this month. This weekend, Pyongyang began to threaten to open fire on its neighbor to the south in response to the alleged drone infiltration.
“The Korean People’s Army issued a preliminary operation order Oct. 12 to the combined artillery units along the border and the units taking on an important firepower task to get fully ready to open fire,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) announced, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported on Monday.
The South Korean JCS responded by ordering troops along the border of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) into heightened alertness mode.
“The JCS issued guidelines to strengthen the overall necessary readiness posture,” an unnamed South Korean military source told the Korea JoongAng Daily. Another unnamed JCS official reportedly told the outlet that South Korea’s military is “on standby” for any threatening activity.
JCS spokesman Lee Sung-joon further told reporters on Monday that the government is “fully prepared for the possibility of actual provocations.”
The latest round of belligerence out of the communist North Korean regime began on Friday, when the Foreign Ministry issued a statement accusing the South of “infiltrating drones into Pyongyang.”
“Drone infiltrations were conducted by the ROK [South Korea] on October 3 and 9,” the Foreign Ministry claimed. “They were followed by perpetration of such a hideous crime as scattering a huge number of anti-DPRK [North Korea] smear leaflets over the central part of Pyongyang through a midnight drone infiltration on October 10.”
The drones allegedly distributed leaflets with “inflammatory rumors and rubbish” written on them.
“Its provocation beyond the limit line constitutes an open infringement on the sacred national sovereignty and security of the DPRK and a wanton violation of the international law and a grave military attack, for which the ROK must pay a dear price,” the Foreign Ministry warned.
“The military has not sent a drone to North Korea,” the South Korean JCS stated plainly on Friday. “We need to confirm whether a civilian group sent one.”
“Our basic position is that we can’t confirm whether North Korea’s claims are true,” Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun added. “Strategically, we can only say that we can’t confirm it.”
Kim Yo-jong issued even fiercer threats in a separate statement responding to Seoul denying any involvement in the alleged incident, and denying having evidence it occurred at all.
“The moment that a drone of the ROK is discovered in the sky over our capital city once again will certainly lead to a horrible disaster,” she proclaimed in a statement on Saturday.
Kim predicted the “miserable end” of South Korea in another statement published in KCNA on Sunday, accusing South Korea of “shirking responsibility” by denying a role in the alleged drone flying. Kim focused on Seoul warning that any nuclear attack on the South would end the North Korean regime, claiming such a statement was “an unpardonable, malicious challenge to our state and people.”
“They will be in a fit of hysteria until their miserable deaths. Such scum should be thrown into a dumping ground,” Kim railed.
On Monday, Kim Yo-jong again insisted her regime knew “that the military dregs of the ROK are chiefly to blame for the case of drone infiltration into Pyongyang.”
“If the sovereignty of a nuclear weapons state was violated by mongrels tamed by Yankees, the master of those dogs should be held accountable for this,” she sneered.
Lee Sung-joon, the JCS spokesman, noted to reporters on Monday that the North did not mention in its complaints that Pyongyang was responsible for multiple, verified violations of South Korean airspace by drones.
“They claim that a drone appeared in the skies over Pyongyang, but they have not even confirmed where the drones came from and are blaming the South for it,” Lee said. “At the same time, North Korea is keeping quiet about its responsibility for sending drones into the South more than 10 times, and this cannot be anything other than a double standard.”
The most recent such incursion by North Korean drones occurred in late 2022, embarrassing the government of conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol. The South Korean military identified five drones crossing south, including one that successfully penetrated Seoul’s airspace. Prior to that, North Korea launched a drone into the South in 2017, but the rudimentary model crashed into mountains near the DMZ.
