▲ Kim Yo-jong, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister and vice department director of the ruling Workers' Party's Central Committee, speaks during a dinner party for a Chinese government delegation in Pyongyang on July 28, 2023, in this photo captured from the North's official Korean Central Television on July 31. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

SEOUL, Sept. 18 (Yonhap) -- Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, on Friday condemned a U.S.-led multinational maritime exercise, calling it a "war rehearsal."

She made the remarks in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), as the U.S. Navy kicked off the Pacific Vanguard exercise on Aug. 30 near Guam, involving maritime forces from South Korea, Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand.

"During the war rehearsal, various naval training for U.S.-centered anti-warship, anti-air and anti-submarine warfare was staged intensively for more than ten days," Kim said. "This was another threatening 'war game' invented by the U.S. for inter-camp confrontation in the region."

"This is a part of the U.S. political and military design to prolong its hegemony by relying on the military strength of the exclusive camp in the Asia-Pacific region where there are many big powers regarded as its major rivals," she added.

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