SEOUL, South Korea, July 28, (AP): The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un rebuffed overtures by South Korea’s new liberal government, saying Monday that its "blind trust” in the country's alliance with the US and hostility toward North Korea make it no different from its conservative predecessor.

Kim Yo Jong’s comments imply that North Korea - now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia - sees no need to resume diplomacy with South Korea and the US anytime soon. Experts say she likely hopes to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington. "We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither a reason to meet nor an issue to be discussed,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media.

It's North Korea's first official statement on the government of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, which took office in early June with a promise to improve badly frayed ties with North Korea. Lee's government has halted anti-Pyongyang frontline loudspeaker broadcasts, taken steps to ban activists from flying balloons with propaganda leaflets across the border and repatriated North Koreans who were drifted south in wooden boats months earlier.

North Korea has shunned talks with South Korea and the US since leader Kim Jong Un’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019 due to wrangling over international sanctions. North Korea has since focused on building more powerful nuclear weapons targeting its rivals and declared a hostile "two-state” system on the Korean Peninsula to terminate relations with South Korea.

Kim Yo Jong called Lee's steps "sincere efforts” to develop ties, but said the new government still "stands in confrontation” with North Korea. She mentioned the upcoming summertime South Korea-U.S. military drills, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal. South Korea's Unification Ministry responded that it will steadfastly seek reconciliation with North Korea to realize peaceful co-existence. Spokesperson Koo Byoungsam told reporters that the statement shows North Korea closely monitors the Lee government's North Korea policy despite deep mistrust.