North's Kim accuses South of 'fabricating' impact of floods after aid offer

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un slammed South Korean media outlets over the weekend for allegedly exaggerating and fabricating the scale of damage from recent floods in his country after the South’s offer of humanitarian aid.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, left, inspects flooded areas in Sinuiju, a border city in North Pyongyan Province, following heavy rainfall earlier in the week in a photo carried by its official Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday. [YONHAP]

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un slammed South Korean media outlets over the weekend for allegedly exaggerating and fabricating the scale of damage from recent floods in his country after the South's offer of humanitarian aid.

In contrast, Kim expressed gratitude regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin's offer of assistance with rain damage recovery efforts in the country's northwestern areas. Kim said he would seek help from the North's "truest friend," Moscow, when necessary, North Korean state media reported Sunday.

Kim called South Korea an "unchangeable enemy," according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) Saturday, and called South Korean media outlets' reports of flood damage "fabricated." The remarks appeared to be his first response to Seoul's offer of humanitarian aid over the flood damage made several days earlier, without directly addressing it.

Accusing South Korea of purposefully trying to tarnish North Korea's image, Kim criticized South Korea's "garbage media" for "spreading fabricated news reports" that casualties in the affected areas in North Korea would exceed 1,000 people and speculating that several helicopters on rescue missions appeared to have fallen.

On Thursday, Seoul's Unification Ministry said it is willing to support North Korean flood victims with necessary supplies, from a humanitarian and fraternal standpoint, through the South Korean Red Cross. This came after areas of the northwestern province of North Pyongan were inundated with torrential rains from July 27.

The Unification Ministry said that data, partially based on North Korean media reports, indicated that heavy rains left more than 4,100 houses and nearly 3,000 hectares (7,413 acres) of farmland submerged in the North Pyongan, Jagang and Ryanggang provinces.

South Korean media reported that after heavy rains hit Sinuiju and Uiju County in North Pyongan Province, the number of people who died or went missing could exceed 1,000.

This marks the second public offer of humanitarian aid to North Korea by the conservative Yoon Suk Yeol administration. South Korea's last flood aid package to the North was delivered in 2010.

In another report Sunday, the KCNA said that Kim received a "message of sympathy" from Putin through diplomatic channels "over the recent serious damage caused by floods and heavy rainfall in some parts" of North Korea.

The message of sympathy from Moscow was conveyed to the North's Foreign Ministry through the Russian Embassy in Pyongyang on Saturday evening and immediately reported to the leader, said the news outlet.

Putin "extended deep sympathy and support" to Kim and the North Korean people over the flood damage, and expressed his "willingness to provide immediate humanitarian support for the recovery from the flood damage," according to the KCNA's English-language report Sunday.

Kim reportedly expressed sincere thanks to Putin and the Russian government and said he could "deeply feel the special emotion toward a genuine friend in the most difficult period."

He said that state rehabilitation work to repair the flood damage is underway, the KCNA reported, and conveyed that "if aid is necessary in the course," he would ask for it from Moscow.

The Kremlin also reported that Putin sent a letter to Kim that expressed his deepest condolences over the flooding and offered humanitarian aid.

Kim and Putin have shown closer ties after their summits at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East in September last year and their reunion in Pyongyang last month, where they signed a new partnership treaty elevating mutual security support.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry in turn criticized recent South Korean and U.S. drills, saying its "provocative modification of nuclear posture stresses the need for the other side to bolster up the self-defensive nuclear deterrence and perfect the preparations for a nuclear war."

The North Korean Foreign Ministry's External Policy Office issued a statement Saturday warning it will respond to hostile forces "with stronger counteraction," labeling Seoul and Washington "war maniacs," as reported by the KCNA Sunday. The ministry also denounced a joint exercise carried out at the U.S. military base in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi, from Tuesday to Thursday.

In an English-language statement, it claimed that the "nuclear operation drill dubbed Iron Mace" simulated "a full-scale nuclear war under the pretext of countering the DPRK's use of nuclear weapons." The DPRK is the acronym of the full name of North Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

It noted that South Korea and the United States, after forming their Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) through the Washington Declaration in April last year, has "regularly modified and examined its nuclear strike plan" and "entered the phase of actual and detailed execution."

This comes after Seoul and Washington's Joint Chiefs of Staff conducted their first-ever "conventional-nuclear integration tabletop exercise" in the past week aimed at reviewing ways to strengthen extended deterrence, including joint planning for South Korean conventional support to U.S. strategic operations as a contingency. It reflected a means to deter North Korea's nuclear threats by using all available U.S. strategic and tactical nuclear weapons alongside South Korea's advanced conventional forces.

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]