It is contemplating holding the exercises with the involvement of more than 30,000 U.S. aggression troops, over 56,000 south Korean puppet forces, at least 440,000 civilians and military personnel of different countries which had dispatched troops to the last Korean War under the helmet of the "UN forces".

Rodong Sinmun Monday says in a bylined commentary in this regard:

This is a vivid expression of its hostile policy toward the DPRK and a dangerous act to ignite a new war on the Korean Peninsula at any cost.

The joint military exercises are an all-out war rehearsal against the DPRK from the viewpoint of military hardware and scale of forces to be involved in them and their program and nature.

The U.S. seeks to realize its ambition to invade the DPRK by mobilizing various means and methods, but it sees the military force as the basic factor that counts.

This is clearly proved by its plan to stage the joint military exercises including the operation to break through the military demarcation line with the use of mine-proof special vehicles the way different from the past ones as well as Commander of the south Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Sherman's call for staging the exercises "based on scenario for an actual war".

The U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK remains unchanged.

It is its intention to find a way out of its failed hostile policy toward the DPRK in the war against it. Herein lies the sinister intention to stage large-scale joint military exercises.

The joint military exercises will no doubt be an anti-DPRK war rehearsal making one more step close to an actual war.

We will not remain an on-looker to the serious situation prevailing on the Korean Peninsula owing to the U.S. imperialists.

It is an invariable stand and principle of the DPRK to approach good faith with good faith and respond to the use of force in kind.

The U.S. would be well advised to stop at once its criminal war drill, not misjudging the DPRK's principled stand.