South Korea vows to consistently take actions for peace after North Korea rejects Lee's overture

Seoul, July 28 (IANS) The presidential office said Monday it will consistently take necessary actions to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea rejected South Korean President, Lee Jae Myung's proposal to resume dialogue.

Earlier in the day, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, said North Korea is not interested in any policy or proposal from South Korea and will not sit down with Seoul for talks.

Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the ruling party's central committee, made the remarks in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), as South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has sought to resume dialogue with Pyongyang to ease military tension and improve inter-Korean ties.

It marks the North's first official statement on the Lee administration, which took office last month, Yonhap news agency reported.

"Looking at around the past 50 days since Lee Jae Myung took office ... (he) is no different from his predecessor in blindly adhering to the South Korea-US alliance and pursuing confrontation with us," Kim said.

The presidential office said it is "taking note of" Pyongyang's first official statement on inter-Korean affairs since Lee's inauguration in early June.

"We have witnessed the high wall of distrust between the two Koreas due to years of hostility and confrontation," a senior presidential official said.

"The government will consistently take necessary actions to ensure a Korean Peninsula without hostility and conflict, in line with the Lee Jae Myung administration's firm principle of establishing a state of peace where there is no need to fight," the official added.

As part of efforts to repair strained ties with the North, the Lee administration has halted anti-Pyongyang loudspeaker broadcasts along the border, urged activists to stop flying propaganda balloons to the North and repatriated North Korean fishermen who had drifted into southern waters months earlier.

In late 2013, the North's leader Kim defined inter-Korean ties as those between "two states hostile to each other," vowing not to seek reconciliation and unification with the South.

--IANS

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