BEIJING - North Korea said Wednesday that the U.S. and South Korean decision to scale back their ongoing joint military exercise following U.S. President Donald Trump's order does not change what it views as the allies' hostility toward Pyongyang, according to state-run media.
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency that scaling back the annual exercise will not elicit the response Washington desires.
Earlier in the day, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, which began Monday, will be shortened to five days from the initially scheduled 11 through Aug. 27.
Trump has said the exercise sends "a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile" to Pyongyang. On Monday, the president told reporters that North Korean leader Kim had responded to his request to talk, adding Kim "has always treated me with great respect."
However, the sister said she is unaware of communications between the two leaders. "This is likely the only issue concerning our supreme leadership's foreign policy of which I am uninformed," Kim Yo Jong said.
The relationship between her brother and Trump remains "excellent," she added. "Our head of state holds fond personal memories and positive sentiments toward Trump," the sister said.
A commentary published by KCNA on Wednesday morning did not address the U.S. leader's comments. The exercise "is pushing again the tensions on the Korean peninsula to the threshold of a war," it said.
Pyongyang vowed that its exercise of the right to self-defense will "continue to completely neutralize the enemies' military threat until the enemy states give up their reckless dream of overwhelming someone by force and completely abandon their attempt to break the balance of strength" in the Asia-Pacific region.
North Korea has long denounced the annual exercise as a rehearsal for an invasion. The KCNA commentary said the drill is "being desperately oriented towards improving the actual fighting capacity."
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Trump is pushing his aides to set up in-person talks with Kim as soon as this fall during the U.S. president's next trip to Asia, which could happen in November, when leaders gather for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit in southern China's Shenzhen.
During his first presidency, Trump met with Kim three times, with their initial Singapore summit in 2018 followed by talks in 2019 in Vietnam and at the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjeom.
But they failed to reach a deal on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, with Pyongyang advancing its missile and nuclear capabilities and deepening military cooperation with Russia in recent years.
