DPRK slams US-ROK military exercises

PYONGYANG - The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Tuesday condemned the annual military exercises jointly held by the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK) that started on Monday.

The military drill is "a flagrant violation of June 12 DPRK-US Joint Statement, Panmunjom Declaration and September Pyongyang Joint Declaration," a spokesperson of the DPRK Foreign Ministry was quoted by the official Korean Central News Agency as saying.

"All the US-ROK joint military exercises which have been annually conducted during the past 65 years were unexceptionally aggressive war exercises simulating the surprise and preemptive attack on the DPRK."

"What is more serious is that the US increases hostile military tension against us by deploying a large amount of latest offensive military equipment in the ROK, in disregard of its commitment to suspend joint military exercises made at summit level on such occasions as the Singapore DPRK-US summit and the Panmunjom DPRK-US summit," the spokesperson said.

"We have already warned several times that the joint military exercises would block progress in the DPRK-US relations and the inter-Korean relations and bring us into reconsideration of our earlier major steps."

Because of the military drill, "we are compelled to develop, test and deploy the powerful physical means essential for national defense," the spokesperson said.

The DPRK launched two unidentified projectiles off its east coast on Tuesday morning, said the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the ROK. It was the fourth such launch in less than two weeks.