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By Micah McCartney
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's powerful sister has lambasted Seoul and Washington over recent military exercises near the North-South border and warned the allies have "crossed the red line."
"The war maniacs should judge by themselves what result such desperate war drill hysteria would bring in the end," Kim Yo Jong said in a statement on Sunday.
Relations between the Koreas are at their most unstable in decades, with South Korea condemning the Kim Jong Un regime's spate of missile launches and Pyongyang accusing Seoul of provocative joint military exercises with the United States. The Russia-North Korea arms trade and a new mutual military treaty have further stirred tensions.
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Kim criticized South Korea's resumption in recent weeks of live-fire drills near its land border with the North and in the Yellow Sea near the de facto maritime border as "reckless" and "suicidal hysterical." She warned that South Korea would "sustain terrible disaster" as a consequence.
Kim also criticized last month's three-day Freedom Edge exercise, the first-ever multi-domain joint military drills between the U.S., South Korea and Japan as the "height of confrontational hysteria" against North Korea.
In a statement released at the start of the trilateral exercise, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said the event reflected the participating countries' resolve to increase interoperability and "protect freedom for peace and stability" on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific region.
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In her fiery statement, Kim also took aim at South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, accusing him of escalating tensions with the North to distract his country from domestic "crisis." She pointed out an online petition calling for Yoon's impeachment has garnered more than 1 million signatures.
Newsweek reached out to the North Korean Embassy in China via email for comment.
"History has shown time and again that North Korea will always find whatever 'reason' it chooses to get itself and its people riled up against the South and the United States," Sean King, Asia scholar and senior vice president of New York-based consultancy Park Strategies, told Newsweek. He called Freedom Edge "a watershed moment in U.S.-South Korea-Japan trilateral cooperation."
The South Korean Army said in a press release that it conducted artillery training at a firing range within three miles of the Military Demarcation Line. The purpose of the exercise was to enhance "response capabilities and fire preparedness" with an eye toward potential North Korean provocation.
The drill came just a day after South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff reported North Korea had fired a pair of short-range ballistic missiles in a possible response to the Freedom Edge exercise. Seoul said one splashed down off the North Korean coast in the Sea of Japan, while the other may have impacted near the capital of Pyongyang.
Last month, South Korean forces resumed live-fire drills near the unofficial boundary separating North and South-controlled waters in the Yellow Sea. The training followed the North's launch of a suspected hypersonic missile that Seoul said exploded mid-flight over the Sea of Japan.
South Korea's live-fire drills were the first in the area since 2018, when the Koreas signed an agreement banning such activities along the border to reduce tensions. Both countries announced they were suspending the pact in recent months.
Update 7/10/24, 1 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with a comment from Sean King.
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