"For some days I have been hearing an unpleasant story that joint military exercises between the south Korean army and the U.S. forces could go ahead as scheduled ... I view this as an undesirable prelude which seriously undermines the will of the top leaders of the north and the south wishing to see a step taken toward restoring mutual trust and which further beclouds the way ahead of the north-south relations," Kim said, as quoted by the KCNA news agency.
Earlier in the week, the South and the North agreed to restore the severed communication channels, slightly over a year after Pyongyang blew up a joint liaison office near the border town of Kaesong.