10 January 2015, 14:24 GMT
MOSCOW, January 11 (Sputnik) — Pyongyang has called on Seoul on Sunday to stop military drills in order to demonstrate the will to improve relations between the countries, Yonhap news agency reported, citing North Korean Cabinet's official newspaper Minju Choson.
"If the South is truly determined to improve inter-Korean relations through dialogue and negotiations… it should stop all kinds of war schemes, including reckless military exercises carried out jointly with foreign forces," Yonhap quoted the North Korean newspaper.
According to Yonhap, on Saturday Pyongyang said it would temporarily suspend its nuclear tests if South Korea cancelled joint military exercises with the United Stated planned for 2015.
The two Koreas are formally in a state of war, as no peace treaty was signed after the Korean War of 1950-1953. Relations between North and South Korea worsened in 2010, when Seoul's Cheonan warship was sunk in the Yellow Sea and a South Korean investigation determined the vessel was hit by a North Korean torpedo. Since then, there have been several incidents at the border between the two Koreas, with two countries remaining particularly sensitive to each other’s military drills.
