As Trump courts Kim, Pyongyang ups the price, while Seoul fears being sidelined

People at a train station in Seoul watch a TV screen on Thursday showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test. North Korea fired about 10 short-range ballistic missiles, South Korea's military said Thursday, hours after President Trump said he would meet Pyongyang's leader, Kim Jong Un, later this year. Jung Yeon-je/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

SEOUL — North Korea rebuffed President Trump's apparent bid to reengage with Pyongyang diplomatically this week, issuing rhetorical salvos aimed at Trump's last-minute orders to shorten U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises.

To reinforce its point, the North followed up Thursday with a barrage of about a dozen short-range ballistic missiles launched from around the capital, Pyongyang, eastward toward the sea, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The U.S. and South Korean militaries wrapped up their annual drills six days earlier than initially scheduled on Friday in a conciliatory gesture toward North Korea, though the North suggested the step isn't enough to convince it to return to talks.

In a statement carried by state media, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's sister Kim Yo Jong said Pyongyang regards the scaling back of the annual exercises as "unworthy of comment," nor does it change, she added, the drills' "provocative and offensive" nature.

President Trump posted on social media on Monday that he had ordered the drills shortened because he thinks they are costly and send a hostile message to North Korea. He later said that he had reached out to Kim for a meeting and received a positive response.

A handout photo provided by Dong-A Ilbo of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump attend a meeting on the south side of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the South and North Korea on June 30, 2019 in Panmunjom, South Korea. Handout/Getty Images hide caption

Kim Yo Jong, however, dismissed what appeared to be Trump's latest overture. Responding to Trump's claim that he had been in contact with her brother, Kim said, "I am not aware of it at all."