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.