N Korean leader’s sister slams US as Biden envoys begin Asia trip

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's influential sister slammed the U.S. and South Korea on March 16, state media reported, as the new U.S. secretaries of state and defence began a visit to Tokyo and Seoul.

The U.S. and South began joint military exercises last week and Pyongyang's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper carried a statement from Kim Yo Jong offering "a word of advice to the new administration of the United States that is struggling to spread the smell of gunpowder on our land from across the ocean".

"If you wish to sleep well for the next four years, it would be better not to create work from the start that will make you lose sleep," she said.

It is the first explicit reference by the nuclear-armed North to a new president in Washington, more than four months after Joe Biden was elected to replace Donald Trump - although it still did not mention the Democrat by name.

Trump's unorthodox approach to foreign policy saw him trade insults and threats of war with Kim Jong Un before an extraordinary diplomatic bromance that saw a series of headline-grabbing meetings.

But ultimately the relationship made no progress towards Washington's declared aim of denuclearising the North, which is under multiple international sanctions for its banned weapons programmes.

It has isolated itself further, imposing a strict border closure to protect itself against the coronavirus pandemic that first emerged in neighbouring China.

Shortly before Biden's January inauguration, leader Kim decried the U.S. as his country's "foremost principal enemy" and Pyongyang unveiled a new submarine-launched ballistic missile at a military parade.

The talks process was brokered by the South's President Moon Jae-in but relations between Seoul...