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TOKYO: Kim Yo-jung, the sister of North Korea leader Kim Jong-un and Deputy Director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, dismissed South Korean hopes of a reconciliation in a speech on Monday and appeared to slam the door shut on the prospect of reunification with the South.

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung’s recent overtures to the North were brutally shut down by Kim. “No matter how much the Lee Jae-myung government makes a fuss … there can be no change in our country’s hostile perception of South Korea and the character of North Korea-South Korea relations.”

“North Korea-South Korea relations have already left the era of the concept of the same family to the point that it is impossible to fully return.”

Lee’s government has suspended loudspeaker broadcasting to North Korea and suspended leaflet distribution as a gesture toward the North, while Zheng Dong-young, the new Minister of Unification, said that North-South relations should be restored, but Seoul’s gestures made no impression on Kim and the North.

“We have not cared about which policy is established, no matter who will be president in South Korea,” Kim stated. “If South Korea, which once unilaterally declared our country as its main enemy, expected to be able to reverse all the consequences it had brought about by itself with some sentimental words, this is a serious miscalculation.”

Kim referred to the “delusion of the Korea-US alliance” and said Lee’s words of conciliation doesn’t change anything, especially as US-South Korea military exercises continue to provoke the North.

“The United States and South Korea are responsible for the deterioration of the situation on the Korean Peninsula,” she concluded.