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US, SKorea kick off massive drill, sparking North's anger
2008-03-02
Tens of thousands of US and South Korean troops on Sunday kicked off a massive drill, sparking immediate anger from North Korea which condemned it as provocative and aggressive. US aircraft carrier Nimitz has been deployed off the Korean peninsula and about 27,000 American troops would taking part in the week-long "Key Resolve" exercise, a spokesman for US troops in South Korea said. A Joint Chief of Staff spokesman said "a significant portion" of South Korea's 680,000 troops were participating in the exercise, which is due to last until Friday, though Seoul disclosed no exact figures. The US-South Korean manoeuvres came as international efforts to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons programmes were in a stalemate. The North's Korean People's Army (KPA) spokesman reacted angrily Sunday, denouncing the drill as "an open and blatant challenge" to the disarmament negotiation and also warning it could retaliate. The spokesman said in a statement carried by official media that US overtures at six-party negotiations were "nothing but a crafty charade intended to cover up its preparations for a nuclear war" against North Korea. "If the US and South Korean bellicose forces persistently work to realise their scenario... the KPA will not stand passively on the defensive but counter it with positive retaliatory strikes by mobilising all means long built up by the DPRK at a high price," it said. But US and South Korean authorities have defended the drill as "a defensive-oriented exercise" to test military readiness, the US-led combined forces command (CFC) said in a statement Thursday. There are currently some 28,000 US troops backing up South Korea's forces against any threat from the North's 1.1 million-strong military, following the 1950-53 Korean War. A US military spokesman in Seoul said Sunday that 27,000 American troops, including 15,000 from US mainland and other bases out of the Korean peninsula, were taking part in the drill. The 97,000-ton USS Nimitz arrived at the South's southern port of Busan Thursday for the first time to support the drill, while two US Aegis-equipped destroyers also reached the eastern port of Donghae. The USS Ohio, a nuclear-powered submarine with Tomahawk guided cruise missiles, and US Stryker units of armoured combat vehicles also arrived last month for the exercise. North Korea staged its first nuclear test in October 2006, but later returned to six-party talks grouping the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan. The countries agreed in February last year to an aid-for-disarmament deal aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear programmes. But the deal has been held up since the North missed a year-end deadline to disable its nuclear facilities and declare all relevant programmes. Key Resolve, which replaces the annual Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration joint exercise, aims to test the South's ability to host more than 600,000 US troops who would be deployed in the case of war. "South Korea has let a significant portion of its troops directly or indirectly participate in the Key Resolve exercise," a Joint Chief of Staff official said, while refusing to elaborate. The drill was the first conducted under a scenario where South Korea has regained wartime control of its troops from the United States. South Korea ceded operational control over its own troops to the US-led United Nations Command during the Korean. It regained peacetime control over its military in 1994 and is due to regain wartime command by April 2012.
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