U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters that the U.S. will be delaying joint military exercises with South Korea through March 18 until after the Paralympics, NBC News' Hans Nichols reports.

Why it matters: North Korea views the drills as practice for invasion, and this will likely ease some tensions for now between the U.S. and the DPRK.

Backdrop: In a New Year's Day speech, North Korea's Kim Jong-un requested that South Korea and the U.S. stop their joint drills, as he has suggested many times before. That came just before the South and the North opened up a telephone line at the border to talk for the first time under South Korean President Moon Jae-in earlier this week.

This could signal the U.S. may be somewhat amenable to some of the conversations that are happening, or willing to make concessions to make a Korean war less likely, although Mattis said the decision was a "practical" matter more than a political one, per Aaron Mehta of Defense News.

One other note, on Iran: Mattis reportedly said, "We do not have an issue with the Iranian people. We do have a big issue with the Iranian regime," per Nichols.