South Korea War Games Begin Despite Threats From North Korea

The two-week annual Ulchi Freedom exercise is largely computer-simulated, but still involves around 50,000 Korean and 25,000 USA soldiers.

The Army’s drill, which involved some 250 personnel and military assets including 21 helicopters, was aimed at building capacity to counter terrorist attacks in non-frontline areas in a speedy manner, officials said.

The United States and South Korea have kicked off annual military exercises, prompting warnings of retaliation from the North, as already-heightened tension on the peninsula has been inflamed by the defection of a Pyongyang diplomat.

“If they show the slightest sign of aggression on the inviolable land, seas and air where the sovereignty of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] is exercised, it would turn the stronghold of provocation into a heap of ashes through Korean-style preemptive nuclear strike”, the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army said in a statement.

In response to this year’s drills, North Korea, which views the war games as practice for an invasion, threatened a “preemptive nuclear strike”.

Elise says the latest war games come amid high tensions on the peninsula.

The warning appears to have done little to prevent the exercises from taking place.

The exercise takes place nearly exactly one year after North Korean troops shelled South Korean territory and only days after South Korea welcomed the highest-ranking North Korean official defector in decades.

“North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats are direct and realistic”, Park added.

The US-led command centre said it told North Korea the exercises were “non-provocative” in nature.

A USA plan to build a high-tech missile system in South Korea and the defection of a high-rank Pyongyang diplomat Thae Yong Ho has enraged the North Korean regime.

Since then, Pyongyang has shut down two existing hotlines with South Korea – one used by the military and one for government-to-government communications.

She added that the South would “prepare” for any possible North Korean provocations, in comments at a National Security Council meeting on Monday.

That defection, of Pyongyang’s deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom, caused North Korea to issue a statement calling the diplomat a criminal, with South Korean officials expressing concerns that North Korea might dispatch assassination squads to eliminate potential defectors overseas.

The North’s official KCNA news agency described Thae as “human scum” and said he had fled to avoid criminal charges including embezzling funds and raping a minor.

In addition to Thae Yong Ho, a number of North Koreans reportedly have defected this year – including a high-ranking military officer in April and 13 North Korean workers at a state-run restaurant in China.