Pyongyang condemns upcoming S Korea-US military drills

North Korea lashed out at South Korea and the United States on Monday over their plan to conduct a joint military drill later this month, calling it “an all-out war rehearsal” that could ignite a war on the Korean Peninsula. South Korean and US forces plan to stage the annual Ulji Freedom Guardian exercise from Aug. 20 through Aug. 31. North Korea has long balked at these joint maneuvers, claiming they amount to a rehearsal for invasion of the communist nation. Seoul and Washington have countered that the drill is defensive in nature. The Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, said in a commentary that the joint exercise shows Washington’s hostile policy toward the communist state. “This is a vivid expression of its hostile policy toward the DPRK and a dangerous act to ignite a new war on the Korean Peninsula at any cost,” said the English commentary carried by the North’s Korean Central News Agency. DPRK stands for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “The joint military exercises are an all-out war rehearsal against the DPRK from the viewpoint of military hardware and scale of forces to be involved in them and their program and nature,” it said. The computer-aided exercises will mobilize some 56,000 South Korean troops and about 30,000 U.S. soldiers, including some 3,000 from the U.S. and other bases around the Pacific region.