Seoul, May 17 (EFE).- Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, denied Friday that the regime’s latest weapons developments were aimed at boosting exports to Russia.
“I feel need to take the fact that the hostile forces are misleading the public opinion with a false rumor that the weapon systems produced by the DPRK (North Korea’s official name) are ‘for export to Russia,'” she said in a statement published by state news agency KCNA.
Kim highlighted the “rapid progress” made by the country’s defense industry in reference to the information published by state propaganda last week that shows her brother, Kim Jong-un, visiting missile launcher and multiple rocket launcher factories.
“As we have already stated several times, the ‘rumor about arms dealings between the DPRK and Russia’ woven with mistaken view and fiction is the most absurd paradox which is not worth making any evaluation or interpretation,” she said.
“The technology of weapon systems we have recently developed and updated cannot be open to the public and, therefore, the possibility of export itself cannot be discussed…We have no intention to export our military technical capabilities to any country or open them to the public,” she added.
US and South Korean intelligence have released satellite images showing thousands of containers being exported from North Korea’s northeast to Russia’s Primorye region, from where they are supposedly transported to areas near the front lines in Ukraine.
Several experts have also pointed to evidence showing that Moscow has used North Korean artillery shells and short-range ballistic missiles to attack Ukrainian targets.
Kim, who is vice-director of the propaganda and agitation department, said that the “recent, diverse activities” in the defense sector were part of the ambitious five-year weapons modernization plan approved by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea in January 2021.
“What is most urgent for us is not to ‘advertise’ or ‘export’ something, but to make the war readiness and war deterrent of our army more perfect in quality and quantity,” Kim said.
“Tactical weapons including multiple rocket launchers and missiles shown by us recently are produced to discharge the only one mission…We don’t conceal the fact that such weapons will be used to prevent Seoul from inventing any idle thinking,” she added.
At the beginning of the year, Kim Jong-un declared South Korea the country’s principal enemy and ordered the goal of reunification to be removed from the constitution.
Since then, the regime has demolished monuments that symbolized hope for reconciliation with the South while also seeking closer ties with Russia in the last year. EFE
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