Seoul, July 16: North Korea on Tuesday warned the planned armed forces exercises between South Korea and the United States forces would jeopardize the denuclearization negotiations with Washington and also hinted it might retaliate to it by relaunching its nuclear and missile programs.
According to Reuters news reports, in an official statement, North Korean foreign ministry accused America of breaching the spirit of disarmament talks between dictator Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump by proceeding with military drills scheduled for the coming month.
At their first historic summit last year, Trump promised to cease all major combined drills with South Korea in order to avoid provoking North Korea.
Pyongyang stated its moratorium over nuclear and missile tests was made in exchange to improve bilateral ties, “not a legal document inscribed on paper”.
The US’ decision to forge ahead with combined military drills in less than a month after Kim and Trump held their last meeting was “clearly a breach” of the agreements between two leaders made last year in Singapore, and was an “an undisguised pressure” on N Korea, the ministry spokesperson said.
It said, “With the US unilaterally reneging on its commitments, we are gradually losing our justification to follow through on the commitments we made with the US.”
Trump has made attempts to persuade Pyongyang to completely give up its nuclear programme last month when he arranged a meeting with Kim on the border between the two Koreans.
“We will formulate our decision on the opening of the DPRK-U.S. working-level talks while keeping watch over the U.S. move hereafter,” the North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said.
Pyongyang has for years denounced the military exercised between Washington and Seoul, but in the most recent months has hiked its condemnation as negotiations with the US and South Korea stalled.
“It is crystal clear that it is an actual drill and a rehearsal of war aimed at militarily occupying our Republic by surprise attack,” the North Korean spokesman said in a separate statement