Pyongyang, August 23 (KCNA) -- Personages of India and Bangladesh issued statements on August 18 denouncing the U.S. and south Korean authorities for staging the Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises against the DPRK.

Suneet Chopra, secretary general of the All India Indo-Korean Friendship Association and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said:

These war maneuvers reveal once again the bellicose and sinister aims sought by the U.S. and the south Korean authorities through saber-rattling to ignite a war, while paying lip-service to peace.

I condemn the provocative UFG and strongly demand an immediate halt to it.

Ragib Ahsan Munna, secretary general of the Bangladesh-Korea Friendship and Solidarity Committee, noted the on-going joint military maneuvers are not drills of defensive nature to cope with someone's "threat" but an escalation of the adventurous nuclear war exercises by the U.S. and the south Korean authorities to ignite a war at any cost.

He demanded the U.S. and the south Korean authorities face up to the trend of the times and stop the saber-rattling at once.