Tens of thousands of South Korean and United States troops began a military exercise simulating an all-out North Korean attack on Monday, as Pyongyang issued bellicose threats of pre-emptive nuclear strikes in retaliation.
Advertisement
The Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercises will run for twelve days and are largely computer-simulated war games.
Although they are largely computer-simulated, the training drills still involve 25,000 United States troops and 50,000 South Korean soldiers.
The joint exercises follow what the “Korea Times” newspaper described as the largest-ever South Korean drill on Saturday close to North Korean border, exactly a year after the North fired several artillery rounds towards a South Korean frontline military unit.
Since then, Pyongyang has shut down two existing hotlines with South Korea – one used by the military and one for government-to-government communications.
He then said that despite North Korea’s financial vulnerability, the country “mysteriously” maintains a stable foreign currency market, possibility due to China’s unwillingness to implement sanctions against North Korea.
The South Korea and USA deployment of the advanced American THAAD system could be one of the options to press China, he also pointed out.
A South Korean army tank takes part in a military exercise near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in Paju, South Korea, August 22, 2016.
The secretive nature of North Korea and its nuclear program mean that experts are not entirely sure how well developed Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons are.
Victor Cha, the Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told CNN that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is engaging in “much more aggressive” and “much more provocative” behavior than his predecessor and father, Kim Jong Il. Pyongyang’s state media called him “human scum” and a criminal who had been ordered home for a series of alleged criminal acts, including sexually assaulting a minor.
But the latest warning comes at a time of more tension following the defection of a senior North Korean diplomat and a US plan to place a high-tech defense missile system in South Korea.
O was the North’s vice-chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea and advisor to the Central Guidance Committee of the Chondoist Association of Korea before he died in 2012, according to KCNA.
Advertisement
On Monday Park said, “Even the North Korean elite class is recently showing signs of collapse, and some of North Korea’s key officials are defecting or seeking asylum overseas, signs that there is a possibility the system is shaking”. Relations are also likely aggravated by the recent defection of a high-ranking diplomat, Thae Yong Ho; Pyongyang’s deputy ambassador to Britain.
