KIm Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said in a statement Wednesday that Pyongyang has "no interest" in the reduction of U.S.-South Korea military drills ordered by U.S. President Trump. Kim is seen here in Hanoi in March 2019. File Pool Photo by Jorge Silva/EPA-EFE
SEOUL, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said Wednesday that North Korea has "no interest" in the reduction of U.S.-South Korea joint military drills ordered this week by U.S. President Donald Trump in a move seen as an attempt to kick-start dialogue with Pyongyang.
"As for the reduction of the U.S.-ROK joint military drill abruptly announced by the U.S. president a few days ago, we regard it as the one unworthy of comment and have no interest in it at all," Kim wrote in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
"The reduction of the scale and duration of the drill does not mean the change of the nature of the military drill with a provocative and offensive feature," she said.
Earlier Wednesday, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff announced that the allies would cut short their ongoing Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercise by almost a week and scale back field training drills.
