U.S. Forces Korea vehicles are parked in Camp Casey in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province, Aug. 5. Yonhap

The United States on Wednesday reiterated the defensive nature of its joint military exercise with South Korea, one day after North Korea called it a "hostile act."

A State Department spokesperson also said the U.S. holds no hostility toward the North.

"The joint military exercises are purely defensive in nature. As we have long maintained, the United States harbors no hostile intent towards the DPRK," the department official told Yonhap News Agency in an email. DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.

The remarks come after Kim Yong-chol, head of the North's United Front Department handling inter-Korean affairs, vowed to make South Korea and the U.S. pay dearly for staging their annual summertime joint military exercise.

State Department spokesman Ned Price earlier stressed the defensive nature of the joint drill.

"First, let me reiterate that the joint military exercises are purely defensive in nature. We have made that point repeatedly and it's a very important one," he said in a press briefing on Tuesday.