[Yonhap News Photo]
North Korea warned of "merciless" retaliation Thursday as US and South Korean troops flexed their muscle with a major joint military exercise involving powerful strategic weapons.
The warning came a day after Foal Eagle, an annual field training exercise, started in the southern part of the Korean peninsula. US strategic assets such as the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier would be deployed.
"Our army will counter them with the toughest counteractions as it had already declared" if even a single shell falls into North Korean territory, the North's General Staff said in a statement published by the official Korean Central News Agency.
North Korea armed with nuclear weapons is ready to stage a "merciless" counter-attack, it said, accusing Washington of having amassed more than six million tons of ammunition in South Korea in preparation for war.
There are about 28,000 US troops stationed in South Korea. Extra US military assets and personnel come from abroad for the spring drills that Washington and Seoul insist are purely defensive in nature, but which Pyongyang condemns as provocative rehearsals for an attack on the North.
Joint drills by South Korea and the United States have become more offensive-oriented, shifting the focus toward infiltration and preemptive strikes away from defense. The change reflects growing concerns about the North's ballistic missile and nuclear programs.
Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
