FILE PHOTO – A North Korean flag flies on a mast at the Permanent Mission of North Korea in Geneva October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Picture
SEOUL (Reuters) – There will not be inter-Korean talks unless South Korea and the United States end joint military exercises that set North Korea as an “enemy,” a senior official at Pyongyang’s foreign ministry said on Sunday.
Kwon Jong Gun, director-general for American affairs at the ministry, said South Korea talked “nonsense” by urging the North to stop missile tests which served its right to self-defense.
“Given that the military exercise clearly puts us as an enemy in its concept,” Kwon said in a statement carried by state media KCNA.
“They should think that an inter-Korean contact itself will be difficult to be made unless they put an end to such a military exercise or before they make a plausible excuse or an explanation in a sincere manner.”
Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; editing by Jonathan Oatis
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