FM SPOKESMAN DENOUNCES U.S.-S. KOREA JOINT MILITARY EXERCISES

Pyongyang, March 2 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK released the following statement Monday in connection with the fact that the U.S. started with the south Korean puppet forces Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises, war exercises for invading the DPRK, despite its repeated warnings: The drills to be staged across south Korea from March 2 to April 24 are said to involve huge U.S. forces in south Korea, the U.S. mainland, Japan and other overseas bases, south Korean puppet forces and massive war means including a U.S. coastal warship that was manufactured to suit the seabed features off the Korean peninsula. The exercises are intolerable aggression moves pursuant to the U.S. Korea strategy designed to "bring down" the socialist system chosen by the Korean people. By putting sustained military pressure on the DPRK the U.S. seeks to prevent it from concentrating efforts on economic construction and the improvement of the people's living standard, and by describing those exercises as "annual and defensive ones", it seeks to make the DPRK accustomed and get used to its war exercises and grow lax and then invade the DPRK in the end. The U.S. launch of the joint military exercises on the Korean peninsula in defiance of the unanimous protest and denunciation by people around it is prompted by a sinister trick pursuant to its pivot to Asia-Pacific strategy. Through the continued joint military exercises the U.S. intends to keep the south Korean puppet forces, its servants, close to it, stem the north-south relations from advancing and use the puppet forces as cannon fodder for besieging and containing surrounding countries. At the same time, the U.S. also seeks to keep the situation on the peninsula tense and maintain the pretext for arms buildup in the Asia-Pacific region. The joint military exercises this year have more provocative nature than ever before. The DPRK set forth bold and flexible proposals to remove the danger of war, defuse tension and create a peaceful environment on the Korean peninsula this year and has made sincere efforts for their realization. It clarified that in case the U.S. stops for the time being joint military exercises in and around south Korea, we have the willingness to respond to it with a moratorium on a nuclear test which the U.S. is much concerned about, and expressed the stand that we are always ready to sit with the U.S. at a negotiating table. But from the outset of the year the U.S. president personally declared "additional sanctions" against the DPRK and blustered that it will "bring down" the socialist system which the Korean people regard dearer than their own lives, and started the aggression war exercises with the south Korean puppet forces against the DPRK, thereby blatantly challenging the sincere proposals and efforts made by the DPRK. This has only brought to light the nature of the U.S. as the chief culprit escalating tension and harassing peace and the deceptive nature of its hypocritical talk about dialogue. The exercises have especially high possibility of causing a spark, given the grim situation and atmosphere caused by the U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces' provocative anti-DPRK confrontational frenzy. Now that the U.S. has become all the more pronounced in its hostile policy toward the DPRK, bereft of reason, the army and people of the DPRK will take tougher counteraction of justice. As already declared, they are fully ready for any form of war which the U.S. wants and may opt and are full of the firm will to counter the enemies' slightest provocation with the just Great War for national reunification. In case a war breaks out on the Korean peninsula at last, the U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces can never evade consequences and responsibilities.