North Korea repeats call for ending Seoul-Washington military drills

North Korea repeated its demand for South Korea and the US to suspend their ongoing joint military drills, Yonhap news agency reported Tuesday.

North Korea called the drill a "blatant" provocation against it.

South Korea and the US kicked off their annual joint military drills on Monday, which Pyongyang has denounced as a war rehearsal for an invasion of the North.

The North called the military exercises a "declaration of war."

"If the joint military drills are suspended, thereby setting the stage for reconciliation between the two Koreas, families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War can naturally meet together," North Korea's Rodong Sinmun, the communist party's official newspaper, said in its commentary.

The two Koreas remain technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.