South-U.S. drills push region to 'brink of nuclear war': North

Pyongyang warned Seoul and Washington on Thursday that their latest "unparalleled" joint military drills are pushing the security situation of the Korean Peninsula "to the brink of a nuclear war."

A U.S. B-52 bomber and fighter jets fly over the Korean Peninsula during a joint air drill with South Korea on Dec. 20, 2022. [AP/YONHAP]

Pyongyang warned Seoul and Washington on Thursday that their latest "unparalleled" joint military drills are pushing the security situation of the Korean Peninsula "to the brink of a nuclear war."

Choe Ju-hyon, a purported international security affairs analyst, wrote in an English-language commentary piece carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency, "As unanimously recognized by the international community, the U.S. and its vassal forces' frantic joint military drills have turned the Korean peninsula into a huge powder magazine which can be detonated any moment."

Pyongyang has protested a series of military drills held by Seoul and Washington since last month, including the Freedom Shield exercise, a computer-simulated command post training held from March 13 to 23, alongside the Warrior Shield field training exercise, the largest of its kind in five years.

Over Monday and Tuesday, South Korea, the United States and Japan held a trilateral naval exercise, joined by the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, in waters off the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula to strengthen deterrence against the North's nuclear and missile threats.

The anti-submarine and search-and-rescue drills involved destroyers from the three countries' navies and aimed to boost the three countries' responsiveness to underwater threats, such as the North's submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).

Cho referred to these latest exercises in the KCNA commentary piece titled, "Expansion of the U.S.-led war drills of aggression is a trigger for driving the situation on the Korean peninsula to the point of explosion."

"The U.S. kicked off different largest-ever joint military drills against the DPRK simultaneously," wrote Cho, "pushing the security situation of the Korean peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war." The DPRK is the acronym for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

He added that the "U.S.-led allied forces were busy with an anti-submarine warfare drill and a search and rescue drill in the waters around the Korean peninsula to stoke an atmosphere of confrontation with the DPRK."

He pinpointed that the U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, Aegis-equipped destroyers USS Decatur and USS Wayne E. Meyer, and South Korean and Japanese warships were involved in the drills.

Cho warned that the "military provocations by the U.S.-led warmongers have gone beyond the tolerance limit" and that North Korea will continue to show confidence in its "war deterrence" through unspecified "offensive action."

On Wednesday, South Korea and the United States held combined air drills involving a nuclear-capable U.S. B-52H strategic bomber and fighter jets from both countries' air forces.

The South Korean Air Force mobilized its F-35A Lightning II jets, multirole combat aircrafts capable of evading radar, while the United States deployed its F-35B and F-16 fighters. The training focused on protecting the strategic bomber from potential enemy threats, according to Seoul's Defense Ministry.

A B-52H made a return to the peninsula just a month after the bomber's last deployment to the peninsula for a joint drill with Seoul in a show of Washington's continued commitment to extended deterrence and the deployment of strategic assets to the region.

This comes as South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup told a parliamentary defense committee Thursday that North Korea has "completed preparations" for a potential seventh nuclear test and is capable of carrying one out "at any time."

North Korea also denounced the UN Human Rights Council's latest resolution on Pyongyang's human rights abuses on Thursday, accusing it of being the "most heavily politicized document of fraud which is full of such falsehood and fabrications."

Han Tae-song, permanent representative to North Korea's mission to the UN in Geneva, said in an English-language statement carried by the KCNA that his country "strongly denounces and categorically rejects" the UN resolution as an "intolerable act of political provocation and hostility."

He said that North Korea "will never tolerate any hostile act of the U.S." that encroaches upon his country's "sovereignty and dignity" and plans to "make every possible effort to defend the genuine people's system and their rights."

On Tuesday, the Geneva-based council adopted by consensus an annual resolution denouncing North Korea's gross human rights violations, which was co-sponsored by South Korea for the first time in five years.

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]