North Korea Warns Of Reply Against South Korean-US War Exercises

Illustration of ATACM MGM-140 launch drills by the US and South Korean Army. (Wikimedia Commons/US Army)

JAKARTA - North Korea has denounced the major joint war games planned by the South Korean and US militaries as a "direct military provocation", warning of countermeasures, despite signs of easing tensions on the border under the new government of the Ginseng Country.

North Korean Defense Minister No Kwang-chol said his military had "absolute missions" to maintain national security from large-scale war games for 11 days carried out by South Korea and the United States, which he said were real and dangerous threats.

"The DPRK armed forces will face US and (South) war exercises with a comprehensive and firm response and strictly exercise their sovereign rights," No said in a statement issued via state news agency KCNA on Monday.

The DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name.

North Korea said the exercise held by the US-South Korea on the pretext of defense against threats was additional evidence of the controversial intentions of the two countries that increased hostilities and increasingly disrupted regional security.

Pyongyang routinely condemns military exercises carried out by South Korea and the United States, after calling some previous exercises a "train" for nuclear warfare on the Korean Peninsula, even as the country carried out a series of missile tests and artillery exercises with direct fire.

Earlier, South Korea and the US last week announced that the two countries' annual drills would begin on August 18 to test troop command and mobilization control under improved security strategies against the threat of increasing nuclear war by North Korea.

However, the two allies said most field exercises would be postponed and carried out separately next month, citing weather conditions.

The delay was widely seen as a boost from South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who won an impromptu general election in June, to ease tensions with Pyongyang.

Relations between the two hostile Koreas have deteriorated to the most hostile points in recent years, as North Korea continues to develop nuclear strike capabilities and dramatically enhance military relations with Russia.

Although Pyongyang has publicly rejected the dialogue efforts re-launched by Lee and Washington, the country is taking steps deemed in retaliation for several South Korean actions to ease tensions.

Seoul said on Saturday it had detected North Korean military moving several loudspeakers at the border, days after South Korea began dismantling similar equipment that had sounded propaganda across the border.

Pyongyang also appears to be using a more controlled tone in its criticism of the joint US-South Korea exercise, said an official at Seoul's Unification Ministry, which oversees relations between the two Koreas.

North Korea "seemed focused on expressing its position regarding the drills, instead of making military threats," a ministry spokesman, Koo Byoungsam, said in a briefing on Monday.