Kim Jong Uns sister threatens US and South Korea in stark warning over military drills

The sister of North Korean despot Kim Jong Un has issued a new threat to the US and South Korea over planned military drills in the region.

Kim Yo-Jong made the stark warning of new 'security threats' on North Korean state media KCNA on Tuesday.

The increasingly prominent figure within the secretive state said the two counties would face the threats by carrying out the 'self-destructive military drills.'

The US and South Korea will carry out joint military drills this week amid warnings from the north the exercises set back progress in improving relations.

The drills are an "unwelcome, self-destructive action" that threaten the North Korean people and raises tensions on the Korean peninsula, Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state news agency KCNA.

She is believed to be 33 ( REUTERS)

"The United States and South Korea will face a more serious security threat by ignoring our repeated warnings to push ahead with the dangerous war exercises," she said.

She accused South Korea of "treacherous treatment" for going ahead with the drills shortly after a hotline between Pyongyang and Seoul was reconnected in a bid to ease tensions.

The two countries hold a military drill every year which they have previously said is for defence reasons.

After positive progress between the two countries, communication channels have been re-opened.

North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un, sister Kim Yo Jong

The drills are held each year ( Getty Images)

Earlier this month Yo-Jong warned that the steps towards a better relationship could be undone as a result.

"Our government and military will keep a close eye on whether the South Koreans go ahead with the aggressive war exercises, or make a big decision," Yo-Jong said in a KCNA statement.

"Hope or despair? That's not up to us."

Yo-Jong has been the centre of rumours that she could be Kim's successor if he dies before his son, 12, is old enough to take control of the country.

After Joe Biden was elected US president earlier this year, she fired a warning shot to him.

North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un with sister Kim Yo Jong

She also gave a warning to Joe Biden when he took office ( KCNA/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Kim Yo-Jong, who is believed to be aged around 33, said: "We take this opportunity to warn the new US administration trying hard to give off powder smell in our land.

"If it wants to sleep in peace for coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink at its first step."

She repeated the North's opposition to the military exercises, which it sees as preparation for an invasion.

In comments translated by Yonhap News Agency, she said: "South Korea has again chosen 'March of war' and 'March of crisis' instead of 'warm March' in front of all Korean people.

"Whatever the South will do by following its master, it will be not easy that the warm spring days of three years that it strongly wants will return."

North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un with military personnel

Relations have been slowly re-opening ( KCNA VIA KNS/AFP via Getty Image)

She added: "War drills and hostility can never go with dialogue and cooperation."

The US stations around 28,500 troops in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-1953 Korean War, which ended in an armistice rather than a peace deal, leaving the peninsula in a technical state of war.

The exercises have been scaled back in recent years to facilitate talks aimed at dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programmes in return for U.S. sanctions relief.

But the negotiations collapsed in 2019, and while both North Korea and the United States say they are open to diplomacy, both also say it is up to the other side to take action.