The drills, which will kick off next week, are a « direct military provocation » against North Korea, Pyongyang said.
North Korea has said upcoming U.S. and South Korean military drills are a « serious challenge » to peace on the Korean peninsula, warning of « negative consequences » to exercises it framed as a major threat to its security.
« The military demonstration against the DPRK will certainly have a boomerang effect of plunging the security of the United States and the Republic of Korea into a less safe situation », Pyongyang’s defense minister, No Kwang Chol, said in a statement published by North Korean state media on Monday, referring to the country by its official title, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.Why It Matters
North Korea has forged ahead with an intensive military build up and weapons development, for which Western officials and experts believe Russia offered a helping hand. Pyongyang and Moscow have drawn closer to one another after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, a fight to which North Korea has committed thousands of troops and a substantial flow of military supplies.
U.S. allies close to North Korea, including South Korea and Japan, have looked on with anxiety at Pyongyang’s burgeoning nuclear weapons program, intercontinental ballistic missile tests and the debut of hypersonic designs that have come hand-in-hand with bellicose public statements.
South Korea and Japan both fall under the protection of U.S. nuclear weapons. North Korea regularly denounces U.S. exercises in the region as inflaming tensions.
« This is a routine answer to the regular joint U.S.-ROK military exercises », said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King’s College London.
