Kim Yo Jong accused the United States of heightening regional tensions through frequent U.S.-led military drills and warned Pyongyang could respond with measures that are "proportional or more offensive," KCNA reported. She dismissed calls for denuclearisation at the IAEA conference in Vienna, insisting North Korea's nuclear status is permanent. Estimates of Pyongyang's arsenal vary, and analysts say it has grown since the collapse of the 2019 Trump–Kim summit.
Kim Yo Jong Blames US Drills for Rising Tensions, Warns of 'More Offensive' Response
A news broadcast showing file footage of a North Korean missile test at a train station in Seoul in August 2026 (Jung Yeon-je)
Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, accused the United States on Friday of escalating regional tensions through frequent joint military exercises and warned that Pyongyang could respond with measures that are "proportional or more offensive," state media reported.
In a statement carried by the state-run KCNA news agency, Kim described recent U.S. and allied drills across the Asia-Pacific as a "U.S.-led war rehearsal" and argued that the current security environment — in which, she said, "new records are set in terms of practical action hostile toward the DPRK" — requires North Korea to set its own records in response.
"Our will to defend our sovereignty will be expressed in clearer action and there will be never ever change in the course of intensifying the nuclear war deterrence," Kim said, according to KCNA.
Kim added that if Pyongyang judges its "supreme interests" or the nation’s military sovereignty and regional security environment to have been seriously violated by manoeuvres, the North's military would "mobilize all means available to cope with it."
The remarks marked a sharp rise in rhetoric from Pyongyang even as diplomatic efforts have periodically resumed. Donald Trump has previously sought to revive diplomacy with North Korea, but those efforts have produced limited reciprocal action from Pyongyang.
Delivering a blunt dismissal a day earlier, Kim ridiculed calls for North Korea to abandon its nuclear arsenal, saying those who expect denuclearisation would hear "the word of idiots." The comments were made during the International Atomic Energy Agency's general conference in Vienna, where she rejected familiar calls for denuclearisation as unrealistic.
North Korea has legally enshrined its status as a nuclear-armed state, with leadership declaring its arsenal permanent and irreversible. Estimates of the size of that arsenal vary: Donald Trump has said Pyongyang possesses 57 "very powerful" nuclear weapons, while South Korean analysts place the number between 80 and 120 devices.
Analysts note the North's arsenal has grown since a second summit between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump collapsed in 2019 amid disagreement over what Pyongyang would receive in return for steps toward denuclearisation. The latest statements underscore a renewed period of verbal escalation on the Korean Peninsula as diplomatic channels remain limited.
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