North Korea District Military Exercise Joins The United States-South Korea As A Dangerous Provocative Action

Illustration of the joint military of the United States with South Korea. (Wikimedia Commons//Republic of Korea Armed Forces)

JAKARTA - North Korea on Monday denounced a joint military exercise by South Korea and the United States as a "dangerous provocative act," during a exercise known as the annual joint exercise ready to be held.

The warning was issued by North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement dated Sunday, a day before South Korea and the US prepare to start their 11-day annual joint military exercises, involving computer simulations and field training.

The ministry accused the two allies of "consistently holding large-scale joint military exercises" although North Korea had repeatedly warned, adding that "random power training would result in a more severe security crisis."

"This is a dangerous provocative measure to exacerbate the situation on the Korean peninsula, which could trigger physical conflict between the two sides through one accidental shot, to extreme extent," the statement said, citing The Korea Times from the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) March 10.

This year's "Freedom Shield" exercise marks the ally's first major military exercise since US President Donald Trump took office in January.

As part of the exercise, both sides plan to hold 16 exercises on a large-scale scale, up from 10 years ago, to strengthen their combined defense posture against North Korea's threats and other challenges, including the regime's growing military cooperation with Russia.

The statement further denounced the exercise as US "military hysteria", claiming the exercise "continued regardless of the inevitable policy ambiguities witnessed by regime changes" and "proves the volatile anti-DPRK practices of the US."

It is known, the DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the country's official name.

"The reckless actions and unreasonable US choices trying to 'in earnestly' play the first move of war through the biggest military provocation ever this year will act as 'minus' for US security," the foreign ministry warned.

Such joint exercises also force North Korea to become "the most comprehensive and stronger in blocking various threats of enemy nuclear war" against its regime, the foreign ministry said, vowing to "multimate responsible efforts" to maintain peace on the peninsula.

"The US must be careful, its usual hostile policy towards the DPRK, openly denying the existence of a legitimate DPRK and the winning progress, will only add justification to the principle of the harshest anti-US countermeasures and face unwanted consequences," he said.

Pyongyang is known to often react strongly to joint military exercises between Seoul and Washington, condemning it as a war drill, although allies insist the drills are "defensive".

Last Friday, North Korea warned allies it would pay a "terrible price" for their joint military exercises, a day after the exercise was announced.