South Korea and the U.S. began annual war games as North Korea shut down a border hotline after threating to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against its aggressors.
The “Key Resolve” drills rehearse scenarios of a possible conflict on the Korean peninsula through computer-simulated exercises, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min Seok told reporters today in Seoul. While no unusual North Korean troop movements have been spotted, the totalitarian state will probably respond with its own military exercises soon, Kim said.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula are at the highest since at least 2010, when 50 South Koreans were killed in attacks by the North. Kim Jong Un’s regime has increased its bellicose rhetoric since the U.S. and China last week reached an agreement to tighten United Nations sanctions following North Korea’s nuclear weapons test in February.
North Korea is combat ready with strategic rockets and “diversified surgical nuclear strike mechanisms,” the state- run Rodong Sinmun newspaper said today, adding that the 1953 armistice agreement that ended the Korean War was annulled. South Korea’s won fell 0.7 percent to 1,098.2 against the dollar at 12:10 p.m. in Seoul, while the benchmark Kospi Index was down 0.1 percent.
“Today, on March 11, the armistice agreement is annulled,” according to the newspaper. “Every citizen is a soldier.” North Korea over the weekend threatened to target South Korean defense minister nominee Kim Byung Kwan after he vowed to respond to any attack by toppling Kim’s regime.
Joint Drills
The South will for the first time take the lead in commanding 3,000 U.S. soldiers and 10,000 of its own troops through the drills, Kim said. About 2,500 of the U.S. forces were deployed from the U.S. Pacific Command headquarters in Hawaii, according to an e-mailed statement today from the Combined Forces Command in Seoul.
“This year is particularly important, because it is the first time the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff have planned and executed this combined exercise,” U.S. General James D. Thurman, head of the combined forces, said in an e-mailed statement. “In doing so, they are taking great strides to assume wartime operational control of forces in Dec. 2015.”
ROK stands for South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.
The North is not answering South Korean calls made today through the hotline at the Panmunjom border village inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung Suk said. “Severing communication with the two countries does not mean physical cancellation of the phone line, but the North ignoring overtures,” Kim said.
Military Rallies
North Korea said units of its armed forces rallied in three provinces March 9, according to a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. Armed forces held rallies in two provinces yesterday, according to a separate KCNA statement. Regional heads of the Workers’ Party of Korea said it is the “final conclusion and will” to “settle accounts with the U.S.,” according to the statement.
The UN Security Council last week voted unanimously to tighten sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear test.
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