North Korea on Friday renewed its call on the South to halt its annual joint military exercises with the United States, claiming that the fate of inter-Korean relations hinges on the matter.

Pyongyang, however, remained silent on Seoul's overture to hold high-level talks aimed at addressing pending issues and breaking the deadlock in bilateral relations.

"If (the South Korean government) truly wants North-South talks and improved ties, it should demonstrate its sincerity by taking actual action to stop all the war rehearsals against North Korea," the country's mainstream Rodong Sinmun daily said in a commentary.

"If the war rehearsals targeting North Korea continue, they will escalate distrust and animosity between the North and the South and increase the risk of a nuclear war ... and this will not be allowed," the newspaper said.

The Friday warning against the joint Seoul-Washington military exercises is a continuation of the communist country's repeated calls on South Korea and the U.S. in recent weeks to halt their joint drills.

Last week, the North suggested to the U.S. that it will temporarily suspend its nuclear tests if the U.S. halts the joint military exercises with South Korea this year. The U.S. immediately dismissed the proposal, labeling it as an "implicit threat."

North Korea has long denounced any joint military drills between the allies, accusing them of conducting a war rehearsal targeting the communist nation.

The war drills reflect the U.S.' scheme for nuclear war provocations on the peninsula and they will eventually result in the disaster of a nuclear war in the region, the Friday newspaper column also noted.

"The chance for lessened tension and improved North-South relations does not come every day ... the fate of North-South relations totally depends on the attitude of the South Korean government," it added. 

The commentary from the North's mouthpiece newspaper comes as Seoul is waiting for a response from Pyongyang over an official proposal for high-level talks.

In late December, Seoul officially proposed that the two Koreas should hold high-level talks to discuss pending issues, including a reunion of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.

President Park Geun-hye renewed the proposal in her new year's press conference held earlier this week.

The North, however, has yet to come up with a reply to the proposal.

Following the North's repeated call for the suspension of the joint drills, a South Korean military source said earlier this week that the military plan to carry out one of its two major joint military exercises in early March as scheduled despite Pyongyang.

Also on Friday, South Korea's point man on North Korea again prodded Pyongyang to come to the negotiating table, saying that any issues can be discussed there.

"That's not a proper attitude (to avoid answering)," Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae said in a special lecture to middle school chiefs.

"North Korea should come to the negotiating table without suspecting our government's sincerity," the minister said, adding that "Seoul could discuss every issue." (Yonhap)