DPRK Slams Planned US -S. Korea Joint Military Exercise

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, March 19, 2002

DPRK Slams Planned US -S. Korea Joint Military Exercise

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The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Monday denounced the United States and South Korea for their planned joint military maneuvers, warning of a "touch-and-go" situation on the Korean Peninsula.

The DPRK "cannot but take a serious note of the fact that the U. S. is going to stage the largest-ever joint military exercises... at a time when a scenario for nuclear attacks in which the DPRK is made the target of nuclear assault is floated in the U. S.," a Foreign Ministry statement said.

The command of U.S.-South Korea combined forces recently announced that large-scale joint military maneuvers, a combination of "Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration" and "Foal Eagle," would be staged across South Korea on March 21-27.

It also said tens of thousands of U.S. forces and the bulk of the South Korean military are to be involved in the exercises designed to take place "under the simulated conditions of a war," the statement said.

U.S. President George W. Bush proclaimed this year a "year of war," listed the DPRK as a member of the "axis of evil" and whipped up war hysteria on the forefront and at U.S. bases during his recent visit to South Korea, the statement noted.

The DPRK statement described the planned U.S.-S.Korea joint military maneuvers as "all-round war exercises aimed to put the ' plan for preemptive strikes' at the North into practice." The situation on the Korean Peninsula has now "turned into a touch-and- go situation," it said.

The statement called the "resumption of dialogue" proposed by the Bush administration "nothing but a deceptive trick to cover up their sinister war plan."

The South Korean "bellicose forces" joining the exercises targeted against fellow countrymen is a hostile act diametrically running counter to the June 15 North-South joint declaration in which the two Koreas committed themselves to reconciliation and national unity, the statement said.

The DPRK neither wants war nor avoids it but has the will and strength to strike and wipe out any aggressors, the statement said, adding the army and people of the DPRK keep themselves fully ready to cope with "the prevailing serious situation."

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DPRK Condemns S.Korea-US Military Exercise