North Korea on Monday promised a “sustained, firm and overwhelming” military response to the joint US-South Korean military exercises.
The warning, in a report published by North Korea’s state news agency KCNA, comes after a record series of missile launches by North Korea this week in response to the two countries’ joint air drills.
In a statement, the Korean People’s Army General Staff said it would “continue to respond” to all war drills against North Korea “by the enemy with sustained, resolute and overwhelming practical military measures,” KCNA reported.
North Korea’s recent ballistic missile tests are a “clear response” to joint US-South Korea exercises, the statement added.
“The longer the enemy’s military provocations continue, the more fully and ruthlessly the KPA will counter them,” the statement warned.
North Korea launched dozens of missiles into the sea, including an intercontinental ballistic missile that prompted evacuation warnings in northern Japan and piloted fighter jets into its territory.
These military actions were described by the country’s authorities as the appropriate response to a combination of air exercises between the United States and South Korea, which they described as a display of “military confrontation hysteria” by the United States.
As part of those exercises, the United States flew two B-1B supersonic bombers over South Korea in the final days of the joint exercises, in a show of force designed to intimidate North Korea over its test escalation activity.
Senior North Korean military official Pak Jong Chon has issued a thinly veiled threat of nuclear conflict with the United States and South Korea over their joint exercises, which the North says are rehearsals for a possible invasion.
Source: TSF
