North Korean soldiers marching. Photo: RT.
The situation in the region is moving “in a very worrying direction,” warned the DPRK leadership.
The United States and South Korea have been stirring up the situation on the Korean peninsula to an “extremely dangerous level,” with threatening rhetoric and a military demonstration targeting the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea), DPRK’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son-gyong said.
In a statement published on the website of the national media aggregator KCNA, the senior official drew attention to the aerial exercises carried out by Washington and Seoul in the Yellow Sea on March 3, which included equipment such as the B-1B strategic bomber and the MQ-9 Reaper unmanned attack aircraft. Previously, both nations conducted an “extended deterrence exercise” that simulated the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea and even issued a press statement calling for the “end of the regime” in Pyongyang, Kim Son-gyong said.
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“The US and South Korea have made no secret of the fact that they are conducting special operations exercises aimed at surprise attacks against major strategic bases in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” Kim Son-gyong said.
Faced with this “irresponsible escalation” of tensions in the region that is moving the situation “in a very worrying direction,” the vice minister criticized the UN for keeping silent about the “obvious violations of sovereignty” and the “belligerent manifestations of force by those “who seek to end a sovereign state.”
These kinds of actions that worsen the regional situation “are a clear indication of the reasons for the continuation of the vicious cycle on the Korean Peninsula,” he said.
Kim Son-Gyong called on the UN and the international community to strongly demand the immediate cessation of provocative actions and US-led military exercises. That would be “the first step towards sustainable tension relief” in the region, “that the international community so desperately wants,” he said.
Thanks to Washington’s military expansion, the Korean peninsula is becoming the world’s largest powder keg and military training ground.
On Friday, South Korea and the US announced they will hold large-scale joint military exercises that will last for nearly two weeks starting on March 13. They claim that these maneuvers will focus on aspects such as the changing security environment, North Korea’s supposed aggression, and the lessons they have learned from recent wars and conflicts.
(RT)
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/KW/SL
