South Korea and the United States should pay a price for going ahead with annual joint military drills due to begin this week, Kim Yo Jong, a powerful North Korean official and sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said on Tuesday.

Kim Jong (File Photo)

Seoul:

South Korea and the United States began preliminary training on Tuesday and larger, computer-simulated exercises are scheduled for next week, stated military sources.

The drills have led to increased tensions on the Korean peninsula after a sudden thaw in relations saw Seoul and Pyongyang agree in July to reconnect a hotline that had been cut last year.

The nuclear-armed North’s reaction to the drills also threatens to upend efforts by South Korean President Moon Jae-in to reopen a joint liaison office that Pyongyang blew up last year and to hold a summit as part of efforts to restore relations.

Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by North Korean state news agency KCNA that the exercises were an “act of self-destruction for which a dear price should be paid as they threaten the safety of our people and further imperil the situation on the Korean peninsula”.

“They are the most vivid expression of the US hostile policy towards (North Korea), designed to stifle our state by force,” she said.

“Combined training events are a ROK-US bilateral decision, and any decisions will be a mutual agreement,” he said, using the initials of South Korea’s official name.

A spokesman for South Korea’s defence ministry declined to comment on the preliminary drills during a briefing on Tuesday, and said the two countries were still discussing the timing, scale and method of the regular exercises.

South Korea’s unification ministry, which handles relations with the North, said in a statement that it would not speculate on North Korea’s intentions but would prepare for all possibilities.