North Korea warns of stronger response to US ‘hostility’

SEOUL: The sister of North Korea's leader, Kim Yo Jong, has warned that Pyongyang will respond more forcefully to the United States' consistently hostile actions, according to state news agency KCNA. Speaking on Wednesday, Kim Yo Jong accused the US of exploiting the Binance case for political and strategic advantage, claiming the US was suffering politically for its actions.

Kim Yo Jong, speaking via KCNA, cited the continuously escalating hostile policy of the US towards the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) as the primary reason for North Korea's increasingly assertive countermeasures. She dismissed the FBI's allegations that North Korea was behind the theft of $6 billion from cryptocurrency platform Binance as a "grave political provocation."

The statement came in the wake of North Korea's recent test-firing of strategic cruise missiles fitted with a new cluster-munition warhead. The nuclear-armed nation has also recently tested attack drones, a new precision-guided torpedo system, and an intermediate-range hypersonic missile.

Kim Yo Jong, in her latest statement on Wednesday, indicated that Pyongyang saw little value in resuming diplomatic talks. She reiterated that dialogue with the US was not a priority for North Korea, stating that the choice for peace included dialogue, but it was not equivalent to national interests for them.