North Korea rejects South's 'bold' economic aid plan

North Korea rejects South’s ‘bold’ economic aid plan

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said on Friday the country would never entertain a South Korean proposal to boost the North’s economy in exchange for giving up its weapons nuclear

His comments are the first time a senior North Korean official has commented directly on a “bold plan” first proposed by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in May.

They came after Yoon reiterated at a news conference to mark his first 100 days on Wednesday that he was willing to provide gradual economic aid to North Korea if it ended its nuclear weapons development and began denuclearization.

“Thinking that the plan to exchange ‘economic cooperation’ for our honor, nuclear weapons, is Yoon’s great dream, hope and plan, we realized that it is really simple and still childish,” said Kim Yo Jong in a KCNA. statement “No one trades their destiny for corn pie.”

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“Even though he may knock on the door with what big plan in the future, since his ‘bold plan’ is not working, let’s make it clear that we will not sit face to face with him,” he said.

Experts say the South’s latest economic plan is similar to proposals by previous presidents, including those at summits between then-US President Donald Trump and former North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the which suggests that the North is unlikely to accept the offer.

“Yoon’s initiative adds to a long list of failed deals involving promises by South Korea to provide economic benefits to North Korea… These were the same assumptions behind a succession of failed efforts to start denuclearization talks,” Scott Snyder, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said in a blog post on Thursday.

“The acuteness of North Korea’s economic vulnerability will make the leadership even more resistant to South Korea’s proposed infrastructure projects,” he added.

North Korea, meanwhile, launched two cruise missiles into the sea on Wednesday, the first such test in two months. It came after the country declared victory over COVID-19 last week.

(Reporting by Joori Roh; Editing by Richard Pullin)

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