Seoul, Aug 31 (EFE).- North Korea announced Thursday the holding of a military command post exercise supervised by leader Kim Jong-un in a direct response to the large joint maneuvers between South Korea and the United States in recent days.
Kim visited the General Staff training command post accompanied by Marshal Pak Jong-chon, a member of the North Korean Politburo Presidium, and General Kang Sun-nam, national defense minister, state news agency KCNA reported.
The exercises are intended to “deal with the current situation where the US and (South Korea)’s military gangsters have conducted extremely provocative and dangerous large-scale joint exercises simulating a total war against (North Korea.)”
Pyongyang already warned last week, when Seoul and Washington began their major Ulchi Freedom Shield joint exercises, that holding them could end up leading to a “thermonuclear war.”
Kim “familiarized himself with the plan of the exercise, which aims to occupy the entire territory of the southern half (of the peninsula), repelling the sudden armed invasion of the enemy and proceeding to a total counterattack.” It said the joint maneuvers of the allies “constitute a real revelation of their plan to invade (North Korea,)” KCNA added.
The exercise simulated “super-intensive simultaneous attacks on key military command centers, military ports, operational airbases and other major enemy military targets and key elements whose destruction can spark sociopolitical and economic chaos.”
The announcement comes after Pyongyang launched two short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan on the eve hours after Washington mobilized a B-1 strategic bomber to take part in UFS, an exercise that allies will conclude Thursday.
After failed denuclearization dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang in 2019, North Korea has again been the scene of a persistent military escalation, with the regime repeatedly testing missiles and allies carrying out large war exercises and periodically deploying strategic assets of the Pentagon. EFE
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