North Korea is apparently having a temper tantrum as the United States and South Korea hold joint military exercises, and North Korean officials refuse to answer phone calls made on a special hotline between the two countries that share the peninsula, Reuters reports.
Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean Premier Kim Jong Un and the senior spokesperson for the regime, said the maneuvers were a sign of South Korea’s “perfidious behaviour” after North Korea agreed to reinitiate the hotline after cutting it off in 2020. Jong said the exercises are 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.”
The joint training session will continue next week as the US and South Korea undertake simulated exercises next week.