WASHINGTON: The US and South Korea will press ahead with joint military exercises, a Pentagon official said, defying demands from a furious Pyongyang for their cancellation as it carries out a series of weapons tests.
North Korea fired what Seoul called two short-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday after two similar launches last week, one of which Pyongyang described as a “solemn warning to the South Korean warmongers” over the planned military drills.
The joint exercises are set to begin on Monday and last for just over two weeks after the US and South Korea scaled them down earlier this year amid a flurry of diplomatic exchanges with the North.
But the military activities on both sides raise questions over the prospects for an imminent start to negotiations on Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal.
Washington is Seoul’s security ally and stations 28,500 troops in the South against its nuclear-armed neighbour and the annual drills have always enraged Pyongyang, which sees them as a rehearsal for invasion.
Peace and military exercises could “never go together”, a commentary by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said Wednesday. – AFP
