Kim's sister says only 'idiots' believe North Korea will give up nukes

SEOUL: The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Thursday (Sep 17) that the country's nuclear-armed status was "absolute", calling those hoping for its denuclearisation "idiots".

North Korea has legally enshrined its status as a nuclear weapons state, with its leadership declaring the country's nuclear arsenal permanent and irreversible.

US President Donald Trump recently said Pyongyang possesses 57 "very powerful" nuclear weapons, with Seoul putting the figure at between 80 and 120.

"The DPRK's position as a nuclear weapons state is absolute which can not reverse with anything," Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jong, said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal "makes a significant contribution to deterring the outrageous acts of international rogues", she said.

Kim's statement came during the ongoing General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, where she said the "familiar silly talk" of efforts to denuclearise the North was expected.

"If they believe that it is really possible, they will only hear the word of idiots," she said.

"No matter how rhetorically the hostile forces may deny, the reality in which the nuclear position of the DPRK has been permanently settled physically and legally cannot change even a bit," she added.

The North's nuclear arsenal has expanded since a second summit between Kim and Trump collapsed in 2019 over what Pyongyang would receive in return for taking steps towards denuclearisation.