North Korea slams South Korea over military drill, questions sincerity for good ties

North Korea on Sunday slammed South Korea over a recent military drill, questioning whether Seoul is willing to accept an olive branch offered by Pyongyang at the start of the year. Through the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), a spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) noted "ill-boding developments" in the South Korean military, after the North's leader Kim Jong-un in his New Year's address vowed to make efforts to improve inter-Korean ties. The CPRK is a North Korean government body in charge of cross-border affairs. Referring to recent exercises held among South Korea's front-line units, the spokesman said all services of the South Korean forces "are being hurled to powder-reeking, North-targeted war drills," while throwing around "such reckless remarks of tarnishing the atmosphere of improving the North-South ties as 'punishment' and 'annihilation.'"    The spokesman also said South Korea responded to North Korea's call for peace on the peninsula "with bellicose remarks and provocative saber-rattling."    "This just indicates that South Korea has no will to improve the relations with the North but will keep to the path of confrontation and war this year, too," the spokesman was quoted as saying in an English-language dispatch carried by the KCNA, monitored in Seoul. "The quite differing stands and attitudes shown by the North and the South in the new year prove who is a provoker plunging the North-South ties into deadlock and harassing peace."    Just a day earlier, Kang Ji-young, a director of the CPRK, told the Rodong Sinmun that Pyongyang was determined to make efforts to achieve national reunification "by pushing to improve inter-Korean relations" in cooperation with South Koreans. On Sunday, the CPRK spokesman insisted that the ball is now in South Korea's court. "The improvement of the North-South ties cannot be achieved by the efforts of one side only," he said. "The prospect for the North-South ties entirely depends on the attitude of the South Korean authorities."