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North Korea castigates US for reneging on vow and scheduling military exercise with Seoul

US President Donald Trump earlier pledged to halt joint drills with South Korea

MOSCOW, July 16. /TASS/. North Korea claims that the United States has breached the leaders’ agreements, because Washington and South Korea plan to conduct a joint military exercise, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a statement released by the KCNA news agency on Tuesday.

"The United States and South Korea are attempting to push for a joint military exercise dubbed Alliance 19-2 in August, which is aimed at us. At the Singapore summit, [US] President [Donald] Trump made an official promise in public to stop the military drills and then repeated his pledge at the DPRK-US summit meeting in Panmunjom in the presence of our country’s foreign minister and the US secretary of state," the statement reads.

According to the North Korean diplomat, Washington is intentionally putting pressure on Pyongyang through the upcoming military exercise.

"We are wary of this. Due to the fact that the United States does not stay committed to its official promises, the motivation for us to keep our word is gradually fading away as well," the foreign ministry said.

Earlier, the US and South Korea agreed to scale down joint drills on the Korean Peninsula, attributing it to an aspiration to defuse tensions in the region. Nonetheless, Pyongyang warns that any maneuvers near North Korean borders pose a threat to its security.

The 19-2 Dong Maeng (Korean word for "alliance") military exercise, which is a smaller-scale edition of the major Ulchi Freedom Guardian, will take place this August.