Pyongyang, North Korea - North Korea has sharply criticized South Korea despite the shortening of its joint military exercise with the US, with Kim Yo Jong, the sister of leader Kim Jong Un, mocking Seoul for no longer being able to carry out its "war game" as planned.
"[President Donald] Trump issued a sudden order to reduce the scale of the drill. This has placed Seoul in a poor plight of discontinuing the 'war game' it liked very much," Kim said in a statement carried by state news agency KCNA on Thursday.
She also derided the South Korean military as a "puppet army, whose right to command has been left in the hands of the US."
Such harsh rhetoric from Pyongyang towards Seoul is not unusual. But amid recent signs of easing tensions from South Korea and the US, Kim's comments suggest North Korea currently has little interest in dialogue with Seoul.
On Thursday, North Korea fired about a dozen short-range ballistic missiles with a range of around 185 miles, according to South Korea's military.
Trump ordered over the weekend that the joint US-South Korean military exercise, which began on Monday, be cut in half. The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, originally scheduled to run until August 27, is now due to end on Friday.
Trump cited his "very good relationship" with Kim in announcing the decision and said on Wednesday he expected to meet the North Korean leader again this year. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung also called for direct talks with Kim in mid-August.