SEOUL: The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday rejected Seoul's offer of economic assistance in return for denuclearisation steps, calling it the "height of absurdity" and a deal Pyongyang would never accept.
The statement follows South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol this week putting forward an "audacious" aid plan that would include food, energy and infrastructure help in return for the North abandoning its nuclear weapons programme.
Analysts previously said the chances of Pyongyang accepting such a deal -- first floated during Yoon's inaugural speech -- were vanishingly slim, as the North, which invests an enormous chunk of its GDP into weapons programmes, has long made it clear it will not make that trade.
Kim Jong Un's sister, Yo Jong, on Friday called Yoon's offer the "height of absurdity", claiming it was as realistic as creating "mulberry fields in the dark blue ocean".
"To think that the plan to barter 'economic cooperation' for our honour, (our) nukes, is the great dream, hope and plan of Yoon, we came to realise that he is really simple and still childish," she said in a statement carried by the official Korea Central News Agency.
She added that there would never be negotiations between the countries that used denuclearisation as a starting point.
"No one barters its destiny for corn cake," she said. - AFP
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