SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Wednesday repeated a threat to respond to U.S.-South Korean military exercises it claims are an invasion rehearsal, while the United States insisted the drills were “purely defensive in nature” to maintain the South’s security.
In a statement released by state media Wednesday, senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol condemned South Korea for continuing the allied drills and warned of unspecified counteractions that would make Seoul “realize by the minute” that it had walked into a security crisis.
A day earlier, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korea’s leader, said the drills were the “most vivid expression of the U.S. hostile policy” toward North Korea and said the North will work faster to strengthen its preemptive strike capabilities.
The allies have not confirmed when the drills will take place or other details, but local media have reported preliminary training was underway this week to set up larger computer-simulated drills on Aug. 16-26.
Talking to reporters in Washington, State Department spokesperson Ned Price stressed that the drills were “purely defensive in nature.”
“As we have long maintained, the United States harbors no hostile intent toward the DPRK,” Price said, using the initials of the country’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “We support inter-Korean dialogue; we support inter-Korean engagement and will continue to work with our (South Korean) partners toward that end.”
The South Korean government called for North Korea to respond to its offers for dialogue and said “raising military tensions on the Korean Peninsula wouldn’t help anyone.”
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric reiterated “that diplomacy is the only pathway to a sustainable peace” and called for “a lowering of the rhetorical tensions that we are seeing.”
North Korea has a history of dialing up pressure on the South when it doesn’t get what it wants from the United States.
Analysts say the North has been trying to exploit South Korea’s desperation for inter-Korean engagement, pressuring Seoul to drop the allied military drills and extract concessions from Washington on its behalf.
