Lee Jae Myung says Trump's cut in drills shows "will and efforts to create conditions for dialogue"

North Korean state media reported that Kim Yo Jong, sister of leader Kim Jong-un, dismissed South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s praise for the reduced U.S.-South Korean military exercises as deceitful and anxious. Lee had said on X that President Trump’s decision to trim U.S. participation in the drills—which ended early on Friday—seemed like a deliberate effort to build peace on the Korean Peninsula and signaled U.S. openness to dialogue. Kim Yo Jong rejected that explanation as a weak excuse, said she knew of no recent contact between leaders, and insisted Washington’s policy toward Pyongyang remains hostile. Trump had said he received a reply from Kim Jong-un after the exercise reduction, leaving the two sides’ accounts in conflict.