[Anchor]

North Korea's Workers' Party Deputy Department Director Kim Yo-jong has reacted to the scaling back of South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises, claiming that South Korea has been placed in a "pitiful situation." While withholding further comments on U.S. President Trump, she shifted her criticism toward President Lee Jae-myung, accusing him of duplicitous words and actions.

Reporter Kim Ayeong has the details.

[Reporter]

North Korea's Workers' Party Deputy Department Director Kim Yo-jong released a late-night statement yesterday, following a similar statement the day before yesterday (August 19).

In the statement, Kim Yo-jong claimed that due to U.S. President Trump's directive to scale down the drills, "Seoul has been placed in a pitiful situation where it must give up its favorite 'war games,'" and argued that "South Korea's plight vividly illustrates the master-servant relationship of the South Korea-U.S. alliance."

Kim also lashed out, asserting that this unexpected situation is a "disaster" and just desserts brought about by the South Korean authorities' unrealistic security views, who she claimed fell into blind faith in the U.S. in an attempt to shift the dynamic.

She also turned her sights on President Lee Jae-myung, launching a direct criticism by name.

Citing President Lee's social media post expressing gratitude to President Trump regarding the scaling back of the exercises, she argued that President Lee was showing duplicitous behavior by simultaneously talking up self-reliant defense and the securing of independent military capabilities on the other hand.

She further claimed that such words and actions reveal South Korea's unstable, anxious, and contradictory psychology.

Kim Yo-jong's latest statement appears to elevate the intensity of her verbal attacks against the South Korean government. This is interpreted as North Korea drawing a hard line, implying that South Korea has no room to intervene in U.S. President Trump's card of scaling back joint exercises.

Meanwhile, North Korea fired more than 10 short-range ballistic missiles from the Pyongyang area toward the East Sea.

This marks a ballistic missile launch after eight days, and analysts evaluate it as a show of force against the South Korea-U.S. joint exercises running through today.

(Video Editing: Choi Jinhwa)