North Korea urges US, S Korea to permanently stop joint military drills

Reuters photo

Pyongyang: North Korea on Thursday urged the US and South Korea to permanently stop their joint military exercises.

The official daily Minju Joson said in an article that some days ago, the US officially announced that it would postpone the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military manoeuvres this year, Xinhua news agency reported.

"It is nothing but a cheap trick of the US to delay its manoeuvres, annual events, to evade from the responsibility for deliberately coiling up the situation, not interested in the detente on the Korean Peninsula," said the daily.

The article said the joint military manoeuvres are "dangerous nuclear war rehearsal to invade North Korea from A to Z".

North Korea has long accused the joint military drills of the US and South Korea of heightening tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Washington and Seoul recently agreed not to conduct any joint military drill until after the upcoming PyeongChang Winter Olympics.