Kim Yo-jong, sister of Kim Jong-un attends the women's ice hockey preliminary match between Korea and Switzerland during the 2018 Winter Olympic Games at Kwandong Hockey Centre on February 10, 2018 in Gangneung, Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Kim Yo-jong, sister of Kim Jong-un attends the women's ice hockey preliminary match between Korea and Switzerland during the 2018 Winter Olympic Games at Kwandong Hockey Centre on February 10, 2018 in Gangneung, Pyeongchang, South Korea.
(Photo by Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)
  • Kim Yo-jong said North Korea is willing to discuss ending the decades-long Korean War.
  • She said South Korea must stop its "hostile" policies toward the North, the BBC reported.
  • South Korean president Moon Jae-in called earlier this week at the UN for an end to the conflict.
  • See more stories on Insider's business page.

Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, said the country is willing to discuss ending the decades-long Korean War if South Korea stops its "hostile" policies, the BBC reported on Friday.

South Korean president Moon Jae-in called earlier this week at the UN General Assembly for an end to the decades-long conflict, the report said, an idea that was initially regarded by a North Korean minister as "premature."

In a statement on Friday, however, Yo-jong said the idea was "admirable" and that North Korea would be willing to engage in talks with the South if it stopped what she referred to as "hostile policies" toward the North, the report said.

"What needs to be dropped is the double-dealing attitudes, illogical prejudice, bad habits and hostile stand of justifying their own acts while faulting our just exercise of the right to self-defence," she said in a statement.

North and South Korea have been at war since the countries reached an armistice agreement in 1953. The armistice is not equivalent to a peace treaty, meaning the countries are technically still engaged in the conflict that split the peninsula into two countries seven decades ago.

The comments mark a stark shift in tone for Yo-jong.

Last month, Yo-jong threatened to boost North Korea's military in response to joint military exercises between the US and South Korea, Insider previously reported.

"The dangerous war exercises pushed ahead by the US and the South Korean side disregardful of our repeated warnings will surely make them face more serious security threat," she said in a statement at the time.

She also accused the US of being "a chief architect destroying peace and stability in the region."

Read the original article on Business Insider