North Korea said on Sunday that there will not be inter-Korean contact unless South Korea and the United States immediately halt their joint military drills and provide a plausible excuse over the exercises.

Kwon Jong-gun, director-general of the department of American affairs at the North's Foreign Ministry, made the remarks in a statement released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Blasting South Korea over the allies' joint military drill that kicked off last week, the official reportedly said that North Korea will not contact South Korea, let alone dialogue, unless Seoul puts an end to such a military exercise or before they make a "plausible excuse" or an explanation in a sincere manner.

The ministry official said that South Korea talked "nonsense" by urging the North to stop missile tests which served its right to self-defense.

Kwon said that even the U.S. president made a remark which in effect recognizes the self-defensive rights of a sovereign state, saying that it is a small missile test which a lot of countries do.

He also scoffed at Seoul having changed the name of the exercise from "19-2 Dong Maeng" to "South Korea-U.S. Combined Command Post Exercise," saying it would be "a miscalculation" to think that the North would make it pass off quietly.