North Korea has once again blasted the U.S. and South Korea’s joint military drills for standing in the way of better relations. In reality, though, the exercises have little impact on talks and tensions on the Korean Peninsula – and North Korea knows it.

After days of silence, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, issued a statement accusing South Korea of engaging in “hostile acts of denying dialogue,” the DPRK’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Tuesday. A return to the “warm spring days” of 2018 — which saw