South Korea\u2019s Defense Minister Shin Won-sik on Thursday called on troops to conduct \u201crealistic\u201d training to ensure the end of the North Korean regime if it invades South Korea, his office said, amid an ongoing South Korea-US exercise that began earlier this week. Shin made the call as he visited a key military bunker operated by the Capital Defense Command in Seoul after the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for bolstering military drills to contain the \u201cslightest attempt to ignite a war\u201d by his country\u2019s enemies, Yonhap news agency reported.<\/p>\n
The Minister dismissed the remark as an attempt to promote unity within North Korea\u2019s \u201cunstable\u201d internal system and sow division in South Korea, describing the allies\u2019 latest Freedom Shield exercise as defensive. \u201cMake all-out efforts for realistic practice and training to ensure the end of the Kim Jong-un regime in the shortest period if the enemy invades South Korea,\u201d Shin said.<\/p>\n
Pyongyang has long denounced the allies\u2019 military drills as rehearsals for an invasion against it, with its Defense Ministry warning on Tuesday that Seoul and Washington would pay a \u201cdear price\u201d over the latest exercise set to end next week. Shin said there is a possibility of North Korea undertaking various provocations during the exercise period, and instructed officials for immediate retaliation, according to his office.<\/p>\n
Separately, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Chairman Admiral Kim Myung-soo and US Forces Korea Commander General Paul LaCamera visited Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, 60 km south of Seoul, to check troop readiness, according to the JCS. At the base, Admiral Kim called for efforts to maintain a combined readiness posture to ensure a strong response against North Korea in the event of a provocation, it said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Korea\u2019s Defense Minister Shin Won-sik on Thursday called on troops to conduct \u201crealistic\u201d training to ensure the end of\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":33339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[10904,10902,500,2396,219,150,10900,10901,10903,95],"class_list":["post-33337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-combat-readiness","tag-joint-chiefs-of-staff-jcs-chairman-admiral-kim-myung-soo","tag-kim-jong-un","tag-military-drills","tag-north-korea","tag-south-korea","tag-south-koreas-defence-minister-shin-won-sik","tag-training","tag-us-forces-korea-commander-general-paul-lacamera","tag-usa"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}