The U.S. worked out new "defence cooperation guidelines" on the basis of upgrading its alliance with south Korea with its level and prospect in the new century in view. High-ranking officials of the U.S. Administration in public appearances asserted the importance of a new alliance with south Korea.

There came into being a strategic consultative mechanism for commanding a U.S.-Japan-south Korea force for actual operations and military consultative systems for various branches of arms were rounded off under the pretext of coping with the non-existent "threat" from the DPRK.

It was against this backdrop that the U.S. Department of Defense announced that it would stage the U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises in the West Sea of Korea at any cost with its nuclear-powered carrier George Washington involved.

The evermore undisguised moves of the U.S. to tighten the above-said alliance hint at a new phase of unchallenged military action to put not only the Korean Peninsula but the whole of the Asia-Pacific region under its control.

The peninsula is the main target of the U.S. Asian strategy from a geopolitical point of view.

In pursuance of its political and military purposes the U.S. is desperately driving the south Korean bellicose forces into confrontation with the DPRK and thereby pushing the situation on the peninsula to an extreme phase.

The Korean Peninsula is the region where the north and the south are standing in acute confrontation and it is surrounded by big powers. It is, therefore, the strategic calculation of the U.S. to overpower its military rivals and realize its ambition for dominating the above-said region, taking advantage of the role of south Korea, its junior ally.

This is clear from what was stated in the new "defence cooperation guidelines." What merits most serious attention is that these guidelines call on the U.S. and south Korea to boost the regional "cooperation" through bilateral, tripartite and multilateral activities while maintaining what it called "firm combined defence posture" on the peninsula.

What should not be overlooked, in particular, is the fact that the guidelines envisage expanding the scope of their application by including Northeast Asian countries in the "defence cooperation" projects, going beyond the limit that "both sides shall defend themselves from outside armed attack" stipulated in the "U.S.-south Korea mutual defence treaty" concluded several decades ago.

The above-said facts provide an irrefutable testimony that the U.S. strategic scenario for carrying out its strategy for dominating the Asia-Pacific region is at the phase of its implementation.

The moves stepped up by the U.S. to tighten the alliance under the fictitious "threat" from the DPRK are nothing but a serious military provocation as they drive the situation into an extreme phase.

The U.S. is the arch criminal threatening the peace and stability of the region including the peninsula and making the hostile relations persist there.

The above-said moves of the U.S. should be held in check at once.