Pyongyang has strongly condemned US-South Korea joint naval drills, threatening to conduct an “unimaginable strike” on US strategic military forces deployed on the Korean Peninsula for the military exercise, North Korea’s Pan-Korean Emergency Measure Committee for Opposing Nuclear War Drills said in a statement.
On Monday, the US and South Korean navies began 10-day joint drills in the East and West (Yellow) Seas. The exercises involves around 40 vessels, including the US aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers USS Stethem and USS Mustin, all based in the Port of Yokosuka in Japan.
“The US is running amuck by introducing under our nose the targets we have set as primary ones. The US should expect that it will face an unimaginable strike at an unimaginable time,” the organization’s spokesperson was quoted as saying by North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency late on Wednesday.
The spokesperson stressed that the situation on the Korean peninsula was reaching “the unpredictable phase,” adding that the United States and South Korea were “threatening the existence and development of the Korean nation.”
“Now that the enemies claim the drill would be a demonstration of the real strike upon the DPRK, they should know that the toughest Korean countermeasures have been fully prepared to make the strike end in smoke at a single stroke,” the statement said.
The joint US-South Korea drills, dubbed the Maritime Counter Special Operations Forces Exercise (MCSOFEX), are said to “promote communications, interoperability, and partnership” between the militaries of the two countries. The exercise also aims to deter the North Korean threat.
The drills also involve a Sejong the Great-class Aegis destroyer, the Ohio-class USS Michigan strategic nuclear submarine and P-3 Orion anti-submarine aircraft. The US Air Force’s F-15K, FA-18 and A-10 fighter jets, as well as AH-64E Apache attack helicopters, Lynx and AW-159 Wild Cat naval choppers have been mobilized for the drills. The US armed forces have also deployed a Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) plane to monitor troop movements in North Korea.
Nearly 28,000 US troops are currently deployed in South Korea due to the North’s perceived threat.