North Korea is now on its fourth consecutive day of vitriol-packed denouncements of the Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises, which began yesterday.
Most recently, Rodong Shinmun released a commentary today in which it called the exercise “the manifestation of a wicked plan to start the second Chosun (Korean) War by destroying the peace and intensifying tensions on the Chosun Peninsula.” It warned, “South Korea must remember that they will not be safe when they keep provoking war.”
In another column, the newspaper emphasized, “Our military and people cannot simply condone the American imperialists threatening our autonomy with their massive military power. The firm determination and will of our military and people is to give a taste of our way of war to the warmongers.”
Minju Chosun, the publication of the North Korean Cabinet, released a similarly-worded column today in which it said, “We will achieve the reunification of the fatherland by getting rid of the invaders completely with our firmly-held determination to destroy the enemy.”
Going back slightly further, North Korea yesterday asserted in a Chosun Central News Agency (KCNA) piece, “They should be well aware that the determined stance of our military, which is at saturation level, is not an empty claim.”
Before that, on the 15th, the General Staff of the Chosun People’s Army declared that the UFG exercise amounted to a practical “deployment step,” through which the South intended to attack the North, and revealed, “The military counter-measures we will carry out will be the kind of fierce punishment which nobody has ever experienced.”
The reason behind the hard-line rhetoric is mostly to regulate domestic society, first by raising tensions and forging a warlike atmosphere by menacingly confronting the South, and then trying to create a mood for dialogue.
The two-week long UFG exercises are intended to assess the coalition defense posture. Some 56,000 South Korean and 30,000 U.S. servicemen are taking part.
