Sunday, August 20th, 2006
Joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises denounced by North Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - U.S. and South Korean forces launched joint military exercises Monday, mostly computer-simulated drills that North Korea has labelled a rehearsal for invasion and demanded be cancelled.

The exercise takes place amid renewed concerns about North Korea after a U.S. news report last week said it might be preparing to conduct its first-ever known nuclear test. Last month, the North test-launched seven missiles - including a new long-range model believed capable of reaching the U.S. - drawing UN Security Council sanctions.

Some 17,000 troops, including 10,000 Americans, are participating in the exercises named Ulji Focus Lens, said U.S. military spokesman David Oten.

"It's defensive, it's not a provocation," Oten said.

The exercises, which run through Sept. 1, join together command posts from across the Pacific region and in the United States.

"The exercise is designed to train, evaluate and improve combined and joint procedures and plans that are critical to the defence of the peninsula," Oten said.

Last month, the North demanded the exercises be called off and said they amount to a "de-facto declaration of war" against it.

On Friday, North Korea's Korean Central News Agency published a lengthy commentary on the exercises stating: "The joint military exercises are another grave military provocation to the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)."

The news agency commentary warned: "No one can vouch that the Ulji Focus Lens joint military exercises will not develop into a war on the Korean Peninsula, in view of their aggressive nature and the bellicose true colours of the U.S. rulers."

"The U.S. military threat to the DPRK is not a fiction but a reality at hand."

Referring to North Korea's missile program, it said: "The tense situation on the Korean Peninsula has not yet led to an all-out war because the DPRK has kept the balance of strength by building powerful war deterrent to cope with the U.S. threat."

"It was quite right for the army and people of the DPRK to have bolstered the war deterrent for self-defence in every way."

About 29,500 U.S. forces are deployed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a ceasefire that persists today.