WASHINGTON, March 9 (UPI) -- North Korea's combative language is unproductive and destabilizing for the Korean Peninsula, a U.S. State Department spokesman said Monday.
U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises aren't threats to the region, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said during a news briefing. "What is a threat to the region is this bellicose rhetoric coming out of the North."
North Korea on Monday ended all communications with South Korea, blaming its action on the drill that began the same day. North Korean officials last week said they couldn't guarantee the safety of South Korean commercial air travelers in North Korean airspace. In addition, Pyongyang said it would retaliate if there's interference in its planned launch of a space satellite, which the intelligence community said it thinks is a long-range missile test.
"The North is the party that is, you know, preparing to launch missiles, has launched missiles in the past," Wood said. "Its actions are of concern not just to the United States and the (South Korea), but to the entire international community."
The international community is trying to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table in the so-called Six-Party talks involving the Koreas, China, the United States, Russia and Japan, Wood said.
The United States wants a "different type of relationship" with North Korea, "but the North knows what it needs to do and we want to get them back, as I said, in that framework of the six-party talks and go forward on denuclearization."
