SEOUL, Aug. 12 (UPI) — North Korea conducted artillery firing drills to boost combat readiness, state-run media reported Tuesday, as the United States and South Korea prepare to kick off a large-scale joint military exercise.

A firing practice contest of tactical artillery sub-units was held on Monday under a “combat drill plan of the [Korean People’s Army] General Staff for perfecting the capability to fight a war and battle readiness of the entire army,” the official Korean Central News Agency reported.

The KCNA report said the participants hit and destroyed targets “in the course of mastering rapid mobile and surprise operations and … steadily increasing the efficiency and operation of the artillery weapon systems.”

The drills “served as an occasion to demonstrate the strong will of the army to thoroughly contain military gangsters in the land adjacent to the border,” KCNA said.

Pak Jong Chon, vice chairman of the ruling party’s Central Military Commission, oversaw the contest. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who usually supervises the military’s artillery firing drills, did not attend.

The contest came a week before Seoul and Washington are scheduled to launch their summertime Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercise, set for Aug. 18-28. Pyongyang regularly denounces the allies’ joint drills as rehearsals for an invasion.

North Korea’s defense chief on Monday condemned Ulchi Freedom Shield and warned of “negative consequences.”

The North will “strictly exercise the sovereign right of the DPRK at the level of the right to self-defense in a case of any provocation going beyond the boundary line,” Defense Minister No Kwang Choi said in a statement.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.

The allies have repeatedly stressed that the exercises are defensive in nature.

On Monday, a representative of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command said that No’s statement was relatively restrained.

“If you actually look at North Korea’s statement, it’s a little bit tame compared to historical norms,” the representative told reporters in a background briefing.

The administration of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has been making efforts to improve frayed relations with Pyongyang.

Last week, the South’s military removed loudspeakers that had been installed along the DMZ to blast anti-Pyongyang messages across the border. On Saturday, North Korea began removing its own speakers in some forward areas, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

Half of Ulchi Freedom Shield’s 44 planned field training exercises have been rescheduled to next month, with military officials citing a heatwave and flooding damage to training areas as the primary reasons. Local media have reported that the move was also made to help Seoul’s bid to mend ties with the North.