Ease up, N. Korea warns U.S., South

Threat made ahead of military drills

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has warned that the United States and South Korea will face “unprecedented” security challenges if they don’t stop their hostile military pressure campaign against the North, including joint military drills.

North Korea views any regular U.S.-South Korean military training as an invasion rehearsal even though the allies said they have no intention of attacking the North. The latest warning came as Washington and Seoul prepare to expand their summertime training.

“Should the U.S. and its allies opt for military confrontation with us, they would be faced with unprecedented instability security-wise,” Choe Jin, deputy director general of the Institute of Disarmament and Peace, a Foreign Ministry-run think tank, told Associated Press Television News in Pyongyang on Thursday.

Choe accused U.S. and South Korean officials of plotting to discuss the deployment of U.S. nuclear strategic assets during another joint drill set to begin next month.

“The U.S. should keep in mind that it will be treated on a footing of equality when it threatens us with nukes,” Choe said. He said Washington must abandon “its anachronistic and suicidal policy of hostility” toward North Korea or it will face “an undesirable consequence.”

The regular U.S.-South Korea military drills are a major source of animosity on the Korean Peninsula, with North Korea often responding with missile tests or warlike rhetoric.

In May, President Joe Biden and new South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said after their summit they would consider expanded joint military exercises to deter North Korean nuclear threats. Biden also reaffirmed the American extended deterrence commitment to South Korea.

The U.S. and South Korean militaries haven’t officially announced details about their summertime drills. But South Korean defense officials said the drills would involve field training and computer-simulated tabletop exercises.

The United States has called on North Korea to resume diplomacy without any preconditions, but North Korea has countered it won’t return to talks unless the U.S. drops its hostile policies against it.

This year, North Korea has test-launched a slew of ballistic missiles including nuclear-capable ones designed to attack the U.S. mainland and South Korea in violation of U.N. resolutions banning such tests.

North Korea hasn’t yet conducted its widely expected nuclear test, which would be the first of its kind in five years.

On Friday, Yoon told reporters that North Korea remains ready to conduct a nuclear test and South Korea has measures ready to cope with it.