On Thursday, North Korea threatened to respond to joint military exercises between the US and South Korea with “offensive action,” accusing the two countries of inciting tension to the “brink of nuclear Armageddon.”
According to KCNA, international security specialist Choe Ju Hyon criticised the drills and referred to them as “a trigger for bringing the situation on the Korean peninsula to the point of explosion.”
According to the report, “the US and its supporters’ irresponsible militarily confrontational mania against the DPRK is leading the situation on the Korean peninsula to an irreversible catastrophe. That is to the brink of a nuclear war.”
The official name of North Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was abbreviated there.
“Now, the international community hopes unanimously for the prompt removal of the dark clouds of a nuclear war . Something that hangs over the Korean peninsula.” it added.
Since March, US and South Korean forces have been conducting annual springtime exercises . It includes air and sea drills with a US aircraft carrier and B-1B and B-52 bombers. Also they conducted their first large-scale amphibious landing drills in five years.
“Rehearsal for invasion.”
North Korea has reacted furiously to the exercises. North Korea has been calling them a rehearsal for invasion.
The commentary singled out the air carrier’s participation as aimed at stoking confrontation. They said US revealed its “disgusting true colours as the chief culprit of escalating tension.”
It said the allies have gone beyond “the tolerance limit” . Pyongyang will respond by exercising its war deterrence through “offensive action” it added.
North Korea has been ramping up its military activity in recent weeks, unveiling new, smaller nuclear warheads, vowing production of more weapons-grade nuclear material and testing what it called a nuclear-capable underwater attack drone.
Last month, calling it a response to the allied drills, North Korea test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking anywhere in the US.