N.Korea Calls S.K.-U.S. Drills `Nuke War Exercises`

North Korea yesterday denounced the joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises Key Resolve and Foal Eagle as nuclear war drills.

The (North) Korean Central News Agency quoted a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying, “Considering the size and nature of the exercises, these are clearly nuclear war exercises aiming to attack our republic by force. We will draw up necessary measures to reinforce all of our war deterrents.”

“U.S. troops occupying South Korea and additional forces dispatched from the United States have been conducting the exercises with South Korean forces. High-tech U.S. military equipments, including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and the nuclear-powered submarine USS Ohio, have been mobilized.”

The North’s Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, an official propaganda agency on inter-Korean affairs, also said, “We will take measures of a self-defense nature without hesitation.”

In Seoul, a Defense Ministry official brushed off Pyongyang’s criticism.

“The two drills have been held every year with the aim to defend the South in the case of war. Thus the North’s claim of nuclear war exercises is totally groundless,” the official said.