North Korea on Friday denounced major US-South Korean military drills, saying they were more provocative than last year’s exercises, state media reported.
Military cooperation between the United States, Japan and South Korea is turning into a nuclear alliance, and North Korea will respond to the new level of threat with a new level of deterrence, KCNA cited a spokesperson for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry as saying.
South Korea and the United States will conduct the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) joint military drills from August 17 to 27. The exercises will include training to counter drones, GPS disruptions and cyberattacks as the allies adapt to North Korea’s evolving capabilities.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry said this was North Korea’s first official response to the upcoming exercises, which Pyongyang routinely denounces as provocative and as heightening tensions.
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North Korea also said on Friday that it would further strengthen its nuclear deterrence, accusing the United States of pursuing a new nuclear strategy that lowers the threshold for using nuclear weapons and could push global security “to the brink of a nuclear war”.
In a commentary, state media KCNA cited US nuclear cooperation with South Korea and extended-deterrence commitments to Japan, saying the Korean Peninsula could become a priority target under the alleged strategy.
On Wednesday, North Korea fired a ballistic missile towards the sea off the Korean Peninsula’s east coast.
The missile was launched from the North’s Wonsan area, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, six days after North Korea fired another ballistic missile from the same area.
