North strongly protests new Key Resolve joint exercises

North Korea strongly denounced the joint South Korea-U.S. military

exercises yesterday, a day after a spokesman for the North’s

representative negotiators at the truce village of Panmunjom issued a

verbal warning,calling the drill a preparation for war.

The Korean People’s Army said in a statement released via the

North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency that it ordered all

its army, naval and air force personnel to be placed on combat

readiness to repel enemies if they intrude into the country.

The Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises got underway yesterday

and will go on until March 18.

The statement said all North Korean military forces will defend the front

line faithfully so that they can defeat adversaries who attempt to strike preemptively.

The order from the People’s Army is the most justifiable selfdefense

measure to take, said the statement. The North issued the same

kind of directions to its military to engage in combat-ready posture last

year in March when Key Resolve began.

The North also ordered all its troops and people to be on full alert during

Ulchi Focus Lens last August. “We have not spotted any unusual military

movement from the communist country and view its verbal warning as

something merely conventional,” said Won Tae-jae, spokesman for the

Defense Ministry in Seoul. The Combined Forces Command had informed

Pyongyang of the exercise dates and the defensive nature of the exercise

last month. Despite the alert, Pyongyang did not impose restrictions on the

inter-Korean border traffic or cut off military communications with Seoul,

South Korea’s Unification Ministry said. Last year, the North cut off

communications and restricted the passage to a joint industrial park in the

city of Kaesong on the day the joint drills began. In February and on

Sunday, Pyongyang threatened to take military action if Seoul and

Washington went ahead with their drills and said it would further

strengthen its nuclear deterrence. The North declared on Sunday that

it will suspend denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and cut off

military communications with both the South and U.S. Key Resolve is

designed to improve the efficiency of U.S. reinforcements

that would defend South Korea in emergencies.

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