DPRK to use force to counter ongoing S Korea-US drills

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Tuesday slammed the ongoing South Korea-U.S joint military drills for creating a war scenario and vowed to take counter action to safeguard its sovereignty. "The war drills ... prove that the U.S. is the harasser of peace and provoker of a war that upsets the stability on the Korean Peninsula," said a statement from the Panmunjom Mission of the Korean People's Army, carried by the official news agency KCNA. The joint military drills were the most serious final-phase violation of the Korean Armistice Agreement, the statement said, declaring the army and people of the DPRK would not be bound to the agreement any more, but would "take merciless exercises of unpredictable and unimaginable physical strength any moment." Since the situation showed clearly nothing had changed in the U.S.'s hostile war policy, the DPRK could not but resolve to use force to safeguard its sovereignty and realize national reunification, the statement said. The 12-day military exercises, which started Monday, involve 56,000 South Korean troops and about 30,000 U.S. soldiers. The Combined Forces Command claimed the Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercises were "defensive in nature." Top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un has ordered that, if even a single shell drops on DPRK territory, the KPA should lead the battle in a war for national reunification. The DPRK and South Korea exchanged fierce artillery fire near Yonphyong Island in November 2010, killing four South Koreans. Both sides accused the other of firing the first shot.