Kim Yo-jong, director of the general affairs department of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, said "new response measures" have been placed on mission standby along the entire border and that loudspeakers aimed at South Korea will be ready within days.
The Korean Central News Agency carried the remarks on the 22nd, saying Kim issued the warning in response to what it called a presumptuous reaction on the 21st by a South Korean presidential special adviser on defense policy. Kim Byung-joo, a lawmaker of the Democratic Party of Korea who serves as special adviser on defense policy at the presidential office, had criticized Kim Yo-jong on social media the previous day, calling her shameless and brazen in blaming the victim, and demanded an apology for provocations against the South.
Kim Yo-jong said she had never seen anyone as foolish and pathetic as those who have hitched a ride on the current administration's "oxcart," adding that the special adviser on defense policy should stop rambling and shut his mouth at once.
"Someone as small as a minnow is blathering irresponsibly without even knowing what blaming the victim means," she said. "It is those who shoot at people who have not fired a single shot and then shout about provocation who should be called out for blaming the victim."
She again defended the fortification work along the border, saying the North is not committing provocations but responding legitimately. "If out of pathological bravado they commit even a momentary 'mistake,' whether intended or not, they will have to be prepared for everything," she said.
In a statement the previous day, Kim had also said loudspeaker broadcasts toward the South would begin along the entire border within this month.