Last Month's Ended ROK-US UFS Called "Military Provocation"
North Korea's Ministry of Defense: "Will Lead to Stronger Deterrence"
North Korea has belatedly expressed opposition to the South Korea-US joint exercise 'Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS)', which ended last month.
On the 5th, North Korea condemned UFS and the South Korea-US joint amphibious landing exercise 'Ssangryong Exercise' as "extremely reckless and dangerously provocative military acts" in a statement issued under the name of the Director of the Ministry of National Defense Publicity Office. It added, "No one can deny the well-known fact that the accumulation of such threatening actions stirs military tensions and can drive the regional security environment into an irreversible catastrophic situation."
North Korea claimed that "(due to the South Korea-US joint exercises) the Korean Peninsula is exposed to instability," blaming South Korea and the US for the military tensions. It continued, "As the frequency of joint military exercises between the US and South Korea increases, the will to protect the nation's safety and territorial integrity based on strong self-defensive power will multiply a hundredfold," emphasizing that "this will lead to a strengthened deterrent force that hostile forces cannot help but fear and hesitate against."
In particular, it threatened, "We will never tolerate the military provocations of the US and South Korea and will thoroughly guarantee the nation's safety and regional peace through strength and action," adding, "Hostile forces will never escape the heavy responsibility for escalating tensions and will pay the appropriate price."
On the 19th, members of the Association for Independent Unification and Peace and the Korea Peace Action held a press conference urging the suspension of the Eulji Freedom Shield (UFS) in front of the War Memorial in Yongsan-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@
The regular South Korea-US joint exercise UFS for the defense of the Korean Peninsula in case of emergency was conducted from the 19th to the 29th of last month.
North Korea had condemned UFS as a 'war of aggression exercise' through a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' US Research Institute a day before UFS began, but during the exercise period, it did not issue any separate statements or carry out provocations.
However, a week after the exercise ended, issuing a statement under the name of the Director of the Ministry of National Defense Publicity Office rather than a high-ranking official is seen as a lowered level of opposition. There is also analysis attributing this to the impact of large-scale flood damage.
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