A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry Tuesday issued the following statement:

Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises go to prove once again that the U.S. hostile policy to hinder the peaceful development of the DPRK in every way and stifle it by force of arms remains unchanged.

They are the U.S. exercises for a war of aggression against the DPRK to put pressure upon the East of the Asian Continent and thus put the whole of the Korean Peninsula under its military control. They are exercises for a nuclear war involving huge nuclear offensive means of the U.S. now under way according to an operational plan for making a preemptive nuclear attack on the DPRK.

The U.S. is talking about "provocations" from someone but the on-going joint military exercises cannot but be viewed as provocations. Given the fact that the international community unanimously expresses serious concern over the tense situation on the Korean Peninsula, this saber-rattling is itself a blatant provocation. The exercises whose purpose is to cope with the "contingency" of somebody and their nature suggests that they are the most serious provocation.

It was expected that south Korea would work hard to torpedo dialogue through all kinds of provocations to keep the confrontation prevailing between the north and the south.

As soon as the present south Korean authorities took power, they denied the reconciliation and cooperation between the north and the south. They are, therefore, under the political burden to justify their policy for escalating the confrontation at any cost till the next elections.

What merits a serious attention is a selfish aim of the U.S. to meet its strategic interests by taking advantage of such intention of the south Korean authorities. The U.S. is contemplating egging the south Korean authorities on to screw up the tension on the Korean Peninsula in a bid to round off the U.S.-Japan-south Korea triangular military alliance and establish military domination over this whole region.

The U.S. responded with its vicious military provocation to the DPRK's proposal for avoiding actions which can be considered by each other as provocations and building confidence through dialogue and negotiations. It is nonsensical and hypocritical for the U.S. to talk about "sincere" dialogue, while kissing the south Korean authorities.

The DPRK has done what it can to make necessary dialogues successful as far as possible without any precondition, not webbed to modality of dialogue, prompted by the single desire to defuse the tension on the Korean Peninsula and ensure peace and stability there. The international community as a whole concerned about the escalating tension in the peninsula and the region is expressing positive support for the peace-loving efforts of the DPRK for dialogue.

The army and people of the DPRK are expressing irrepressible resentment at the U.S. for its high-handed act of staging the large-scale war maneuvers against the DPRK again quite contrary to the trend of the times.

Inevitable is the physical counter-action on the part of the army of the DPRK for self-defence. The hard-won opportunity of dialogue and detente is fading away.

The U.S. should be wholly accountable for all the consequences to be entailed by its military provocations.

The DPRK is ready for both dialogue and confrontation.

The U.S. would be well advised to know well that it would lose more than what it would gain by escalating the military tension on the peninsula.