NKorea says war-games will slow its efforts to scrap nukes
SEOUL (AFP) — North Korea on Monday denounced a major joint US-South Korean military exercise as "nuclear blackmail" which would slow down negotiations on scrapping its atomic weapons.
US and South Korean authorities have defended the six-day "Key Resolve" manoeuvres, which began on Sunday and involve tens of thousands of troops, as a defence-oriented exercise to test military readiness.
The hardline communist country stepped up its criticism Monday.
The exercise is, "to all intents and purposes, manoeuvres for a nuclear war to seize the DPRK (North Korea) by force of arms in light of their scale and nature," a foreign ministry spokesman said.
The spokesman, quoted by the official Korean Central News Agency, said the war-games were going ahead even though the United States had said it wants a peaceful solution to the nuclear issue.
"This is a clear indication that the US is invariably sticking to its hostile policy to stifle the DPRK by force.
"Such nuclear threat and blackmail do not work on the DPRK but will only put a brake on the process of the denuclearisation of the peninsula," he said, adding that the North would take necessary countermeasures and strengthen all its "deterrent" power.
There are currently about 28,000 US troops based permanently in the South, backing up South Korea's 680,000 soldiers against any threat from the North's 1.1 million-strong military.
An unspecified number of South Korean soldiers and about 27,000 US troops including 15,000 from the US mainland are taking part in the exercise.
It also involves the US aircraft carrier Nimitz, two US Aegis-equipped destroyers, a nuclear-powered submarine and US armoured combat vehicles.
North Korea routinely denounces such annual drills. But this year's exercise comes as international efforts to dismantle the North's nuclear weapons programmes have reached a stalemate.
On Sunday a North Korean army spokesman denounced the war-games as "an open and blatant challenge" to the disarmament negotiations.
North Korea staged its first nuclear test in October 2006 but later returned to six-party talks grouping the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan.
But a disarmament deal in February last year has been held up since the North missed an end-2007 deadline to disable its main atomic facilities and declare all nuclear programmes.
Pyongyang has said it submitted a full list in November. But the United States insists it is still waiting for the complete declaration, including a full account of a suspected covert uranium enrichment programme and any proliferation moves.
The chief US nuclear negotiator visited Beijing last weekend but left without having a hoped-for meeting with his counterpart from Pyongyang.
"Key Resolve" aims to test the South's ability to host more than 600,000 US troops who would be deployed in case of war.
The drill is the first conducted under a scenario under which South Korea has regained wartime control of its troops from the United States.
South Korea ceded operational control over its own troops to the US-led United Nations Command during the 1950-53 Korean War. It regained peacetime control over its military in 1994 and is due to regain wartime command by April 2012.
