N Korea denounces 'provocative' US-S Korea joint military exercises

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, March 2, IRNA -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Monday denounced the US-South Korean joint military exdercises code named Key Resolve and Foal Eagle saying they are intended 'for invading the DPRK, despite its repeated warnings'.

'The exercises are intolerable aggression moves pursuant to the U.S. Korea strategy designed to 'bring down' the socialist system chosen by the Korean people,' said a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Pyongyang quoted by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

'The drills to be staged across south Korea from March 2 to April 24 are said to involve huge U.S. forces in south Korea, the U.S. mainland, Japan and other overseas bases, south Korean puppet forces and massive war means including a U.S. coastal warship that was manufactured to suit the seabed features off the Korean peninsula,' KCNA office in Tehran reported.

'By putting sustained military pressure on the DPRK the U.S. seeks to prevent it from concentrating efforts on economic construction and the improvement of the people's living standard, and by describing those exercises as 'annual and defensive ones', it seeks to make the DPRK accustomed and get used to its war exercises and grow lax and then invade the DPRK in the end,' the spokesman said.

'The U.S. launch of the joint military exercises on the Korean peninsula in defiance of the unanimous protest and denunciation by people around it is prompted by a sinister trick pursuant to its pivot to Asia-Pacific strategy.'

At the same time, the news agency reported, the U.S. also seeks to keep the situation on the peninsula tense and maintain the pretext for arms buildup in the Asia-Pacific region.

'The joint military exercises this year have more provocative nature than ever before,' the spokesman added.

Now that the U.S. has become all the more pronounced in its hostile policy toward the DPRK, bereft of reason, the army and people of the DPRK will take tougher counteraction of justice, he added.

'In case a war breaks out on the Korean peninsula at last, the U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces can never evade consequences and responsibilities.'

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