SEOUL (REUTERS) - North Korean media reported on Monday (Nov 18) that leader Kim Jong Un supervised air force drills for the second time in three days, even as the United States and South Korea decided to postpone their joint air drills to ease denuclearisation talks with North Korea.
The US and South Korea said on Sunday that they would postpone upcoming military drills, known as the Combined Flying Training Event, in an effort to bolster a stalled peace push with North Korea.
Washington denied the move amounted to another concession to Pyongyang.
The drills, already planned to be scaled back from previous years, would have simulated air combat scenarios and involved an undisclosed number of warplanes from both the US and South Korea to test readiness.
On Monday, North Korean state news agency KCNA said Mr Kim supervised an airborne landing training of sharpshooter sub-units of the Air and Anti-Aircraft Force of the North Korean army.
Mr Kim "said that it is necessary to wage a drill without notice under the simulated conditions of real war" for "improving the preparedness" of North Korean military units, KCNA said.
Last Saturday, KCNA had reported that Mr Kim watched a "combat flight contest" of the flight commanding officers of the Air and Anti-Aircraft Force.
A photo in state newspaper Rodong Sinmun showed him smiling amid pilots gathered around him.
It was unclear when Mr Kim oversaw these events, or whether they were on the same day. There were no mention of US or South Korea in the KCNA reports.
President Donald Trump on Sunday told Mr Kim, "you should act quickly, get the deal done" with the US, and signed off "See you soon!" on Twitter.
Responding in a statement on its state news agency KCNA on Monday, North Korea said it will not offer anything for President Trump to brag about without receiving anything in return.
North Korea was not interested in a summit that was "useless to itself", said the statement, under the name of Foreign Ministry adviser Kim Kye Gwan.
"If the US does not really want to let go of its dialogue with us, it should make a decision to withdraw its hostile policy of viewing us as an enemy," the KCNA statement said.
