On February 20, Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and a deputy director in the Workers’ Party of Korea said, “How often we use the Pacific Ocean as our shooting range depends on the nature of actions by the U.S. Forces,” and hinted at a military response to the deployment of U.S. strategic assets in the Korean Peninsula. On Monday, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired a ballistic missile into the East Sea, in what seems to be a response to the joint aerial drill conducted by the Republic of Korea and the United States.

Deputy Director Kim released the statement through the Korean Central News Agency Monday and reaffirmed her determination to make “fanatics who raise tensions pay the price for their actions.”

She released statements two days in a row following her first statement on Sunday and condemned South Korea and the U.S. The Joint Chiefs of Staff announced that North Korea fired an unidentified ballistic missile into the East Sea Monday morning.

Kim Yo-jong said that Pyongyang was clearly aware of recent movements by U.S. assets for strategic strikes in the Korean Peninsula and claimed that the North was carefully examining the impact this would have on the safety of the DPRK. If the North determines any direct or indirect cause of concern, then Kim stressed that the North would engage in “a corresponding response.”

Her statement protested the joint aerial exercise conducted by the Air Forces of South Korea and the U.S. in the airspace over the Korean Peninsula on Sunday, which involved U.S. strategic assets including the B-1B strategic bomber. The joint military drill was conducted in response to the North’s launch of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), Hwasong-15, on February 18.

Most of Kim’s statement fiercely attacked the evaluation by South Korean experts underrating the technology involved in Hwasong-15.

The deputy director mentioned how she observed the situation the previous day and described that the South’s “assessments, guesses and speculations were truly a sight.” She further said that it made her want to tease and ridicule the South once again.

Kim said, “A research expert of some military research institute in South Korea must have had nothing better to do. He looked at the clock hand and did some counting. Then he appeared in the media and rattled that it took nine hours and twenty-two minutes from the time the order was given until the launch was executed and tried all his might to underrate any one thing about the readiness of our missile capacity.”

A written order for a missile launch was issued by the senior leaders of North Korea two days ago when they launched the intercontinental ballistic missile. Kim explained that it included instructions to make a surprise launch after deciding on a favorable time to hit the mark sometime in the afternoon. She also argued that the North engaged in important military actions after choosing a time between 15:30 and 19:45 after all seven enemy reconnaissance planes monitoring the air space landed.

The North displayed its capacity to make a surprise launch claiming that it was aware of every movement by the aerial reconnaissance assets of the South and the U.S. Kim’s words also mocked the two countries claiming they could not detect any signs of the intercontinental ballistic missile launch. Kim Yo-jong made a sarcastic remark saying, “It is obvious that the military officials will chatter an excuse that they detected signs of a missile launch prior to the event and that they were monitoring the situation with intelligence assets.”

Kim Yo-jong also said, “A person who claimed to be an honorary research fellow at the Science & Technology Policy Institute showed a picture released by the Japanese and once again repeated the argument they always make--that the reentry of the warhead had failed.”

She continued and said, “The idiots can’t even tell the difference between a warhead and a phase-2 projectile, and they don’t even seem to know that when the launch angle is high, the distance between the warhead and the phase-2 projectile naturally grow closer.” She argued, “We’ve explained this before, but if the warhead failed to reenter the atmosphere, we would not have been able to receive the signal data of the warhead until the point of impact.”

She refuted the assessment by South Korean experts who claimed that the North’s ICBM technology was incomplete since the warhead reentry technology had not been proven yet. Kim attacked the argument that North Korea failed to make any advances in creating “ampoules,” separate containers filled with liquid fuel, and criticized, “Underrating someone else’s technology, which they’ve never achieved, after looking through science and technology information is senseless and ugly.”

Kim Yo-jong argued, “They may find peace of mind by believing everything that these incompetent and senseless novices, who call themselves experts, chatter, but the crisis that the U.S. and South Korea actually face will not develop the way they want it to,” and added, “They will only be confused in properly identifying the critical situation.”

Kim stressed that North Korea had sufficient technology and capability and said that their remaining task was simply to increase the number of their capacity. She claimed that the South should seriously consider measures to defend itself rather than suspect or worry about someone else’s technology. Her words reaffirmed Chairman Kim Jong-un’s goal for this year--the mass production of strategic nuclear weapons.