North Korea on Friday denounced a plan by South Korea and the US to stage their joint annual military drills in August, warning that they could face a \u201ccatastrophic aftermath\u201d if they carry out the exercise. The Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) by Seoul and Washington is a \u201cnuclear attack exercise\u201d against Pyongyang that will involve state-of-the-art military equipment, including nuclear strategic assets, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). In December 2023, South Korea and the US agreed to hold a discussion-based exercise simulating North Korea\u2019s use of a nuclear weapon in conjunction with the UFS.<\/p>\n
It would mark the first time such training takes place, Yonhap news agency reported. \u201cThe joint military exercise slated for August aims to complete the US nuclear war plan \u2026 and fully implement it. This clearly shows that Washington\u2019s claim that it has no hostile intent is nothing but a deceptive hypocrisy,\u201d the KCNA said. In a separate KCNA dispatch, the North also denounced the latest joint air combat drills between advanced South Korean and US stealth fighters.<\/p>\n
The exercise, involving two South Korean F-35As and two US F-22 Raptors, took place over a central region in South Korea on Thursday after the US aircraft arrived in the country earlier this week. \u201cThe \u2018revisit\u2019 of F-22 stealth fighters to the Korean peninsula only after seven months and their first \u2018simulated air battle\u2019 is another clear proof of the hostile nature of the US, which has persistently encroached upon regional countries\u2019 rights to security while seeking the showdown of force with the DPRK,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
DPRK stands for the North\u2019s official name, the Democratic People\u2019s Republic of Korea. South Korea\u2019s unification ministry said the joint military exercise is defensive in nature and aimed at preventing war, stressing that North Korea should not use it as a pretext for further provocations. \u201cThe unification ministry will closely monitor North Korea\u2019s movements and thoroughly check all possibilities in close cooperation with relevant departments to prepare for any potential provocations,\u201d said Kim In-ae, the deputy spokesperson for the ministry, during a press briefing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North Korea on Friday denounced a plan by South Korea and the US to stage their joint annual military drills\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":44563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[4033,149,9480,219,150,2128,95,8404,9805],"class_list":["post-44562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-ballistic-missiles","tag-japan","tag-military-exercises","tag-north-korea","tag-south-korea","tag-tensions","tag-usa","tag-warnings","tag-weapons-tests"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44562","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=44562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}