North Korea threatens 'preemptive strike' ahead of US-South Korea drills

The country threatened that the US and South Korea would pay a heavy price in blood for their “anti-peace and anti-national” moves.

On August 17, right before the joint military exercises between the US and South Korea, North Korea declared that they would launch the most merciless and fierce preemptive attacks of their own style at any time.

North Korean army launches rockets (photo: Reuters)

In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), a spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army said this was in response to the US and South Korea's threats to carry out specific deterrence strategies during these exercises.

“When we attack, the puppet regime of the US and the South will have only themselves to blame, and if we make a decision, large and small military bases used for the invasion (of the North) will turn into a sea of ​​fire and ashes,” the statement said in Korean.

The statement said that by conducting regular military exercises every year, the United States and South Korea have “blatantly” demonstrated their aggressive efforts to overthrow the regime of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and practice unification of the Korean Peninsula through the annexation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. And therefore, the statement added, North Korea will conduct large-scale military exercises on a regular basis every year to cope with this situation.

North Korea denounces upcoming military exercises between South Korea and the United States as a rehearsal for an invasion of North Korea.

“The Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise is a treacherous nuclear war rehearsal aimed at carrying out unjust preemptive strikes on our republic,” the North Korean statement said. “We do not hide the fact that our revolutionary forces are ready for all-out war” to confront such threats.

Meanwhile, Yonahp quoted South Korea as saying their drills were purely defensive in nature.

Seoul and Washington are scheduled to conduct a four-day exercise from August 18-21 involving 3,700 government agencies and 480,000 state employees to prepare for emergencies, including an invasion from the north.

A statement from the North Korean military said the upcoming drills will involve nuclear attack means and put the Korean peninsula in an extremely grave situation.

Pyongyang has yet to respond to Seoul's proposal last week to hold high-level inter-Korean talks to discuss the reunion of families separated by the 1950-1953 Korean War and other issues of mutual concern./.

According to VOV