Article Posted on : - Mar 12, 2009

South Korean troops prepare for airborne jumps with a helium blimp and gondola at the ROK Drop Zone March 5 in preparation for the military exercise. Pentagon photo

SEOUL (BNS): North Korea has warned that it would take every necessary measure to protect its sovereignty in the wake of the joint military exercises by the US and South Korea underway now.

Official KCNA news agency reported Thursday that the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that the situation hardens the will of the DPRK to bolster up its defence capability in “every way no matter what others may say.”

Key Resolve/Foal Eagle 2009, the joint military exercise involving US and South Korean troops, began Monday and will continue through March 20 across the Republic of Korea. About 13,100 troops from outside Korea will participate in this year’s exercise, along with those already in the country, US military officials said.

A spokesman for the foreign ministry of North Korea said the exercise has been undertaken at a time when “the inter-Korean relations have reached the worst phase.” The spokesman warned that the “situation has grown so tense that a war may break out any moment due to the reckless policy of confrontation pursued by the south Korean conservative authorities.”

North Korea said the war maneuvers are “nuclear war exercises designed to mount a preemptive attack on the DPRK in terms of their scale and contents from A to Z.”

The spokesman pointed out that in the present exercise “offensive military equipment including two nuclear-powdered carriers and nuclear submarines than those mobilized in the previous war maneuvers.” The exercise duration is “double that of the saber rattling staged before,” he said.

No one can vouch that the US and the South Korean forces “will not play with fire against the DPRK while staging such dangerous war exercises,” he said.

The new administration of the US is “now working hard to infringe upon the sovereignty of the DPRK by force of arms in collusion with the south Korean forces after “letting loose a whole string of words and deeds little short of getting on the nerves of the DPRK and seriously interfering in its internal affairs,” the spokesman said.