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Kim Jong Un oversees military drills

Accra/Seoul, Nov. 18, (UPI/GNA) – North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised a parachute landing exercise held by the
country’s air force “under the simulated conditions of real war,”
state-controlled Korean Central News Agency reported on Monday morning.

The exercises, the second such drills
reported by North Korea over the past three days, came as the United States and
South Korea announced the postponement of a joint flight training event that
had been scheduled to start Monday.

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper and South
Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo announced the postponement during a
regional meeting in Bangkok on Sunday.

Esper told reporters the decision was made
as an “act of goodwill” in order to revive stalled nuclear talks with
the communist state.

“We encourage [North Korea] to
demonstrate the same goodwill,” Esper said, urging Pyongyang “to
return to the negotiating table without precondition or hesitation.”

Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters on Sunday that the military supported
“diplomatic efforts to resolve the situation on the ground
peacefully.”

“The reason we’re [postponing the
exercises] is to give the North Koreans an opportunity to reconsider some of
their recent provocations and come back to the negotiating table,” he
said.

North Korea has conducted several
short-range missile launches since a February summit between U.S. President
Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un ended abruptly without an agreement.

Kim “expressed great satisfaction”
at the parachuting drill of the air and anti-aircraft force of the Korean
People’s Army, Monday’s report said, and “underscored the need to organize
and guide drills in an effective way with the main stress on fully training all
combatants to successfully discharge their duties under any condition.”

Kim added that such exercises were necessary
to “develop the KPA into an invincible army.”

On Saturday, KCNA reported that Kim viewed a
“combat flight contest” of the air force held at Wonsan Kalma
Airport.

Trump on Sunday called on Kim to return to
the negotiating table, writing on Twitter that “I am the only one that can
get you where you have to be.”

Trump’s tweet came in response to North
Korea calling his political rival Joe Biden a “rabid dog” who
“should be beaten to death with a stick” after Biden criticized Kim
Jong Un.

“Mr. Chairman, Joe Biden may be Sleepy
and Very Slow, but he is not a ‘rabid dog.’ He is actually somewhat better than
that,” Trump tweeted while appearing to hint at another summit with the
North Korean leader on the horizon.

GNA

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