calendar>>August 21. 2012 Juch 101

Halt to U.S.-S. Korea Military Exercises against DPRK Urged

Pyongyang, August 21 (KCNA) -- The South Headquarters of the Pan-national Alliance for Korea's Reunification, the People for Achieving Peace and Reunification, the Federation of University Students in the 21st Century and 46 other civic and public organizations and organizations of youth and students in south Korea held a press conference on Aug. 20 in denunciation of the warmongers' dangerous joint military exercises to invade the north.

The organizations said that the U.S. and the south Korean war-like forces finally kicked off Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises, adding that the largest-ever saber-rattling in which more than 30 000 U.S. troops and nearly 500 000 south Korean troops and civilians are involved is explicitly aimed at invading the north, to all contents and purposes.

Even military personnel of different countries including Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway and France will take part in the joint military drills for deploying forces on the Korean Peninsula from Japanese military bases in "contingency", they disclosed.

They said the U.S. again revealed its attempt to boost the role of "UN Forces Command" and continue putting the south Korean army under its control even after the transfer of wartime operational control.

The U.S. and the south Korean authorities should immediately stop the illegal joint military exercises for aggression escalating the military tension and threatening peace on the Korean Peninsula, they concluded.