Rodong Sinmun Friday says in an article in this regard:

The joint military drills are little short of an open declaration of a war against the DPRK as they are an unprecedented military provocation in light of their scale, nature and program.

The south Korea-U.S. combined division is being involved in the drills whose operational mission is to "remove the headquarters" and "occupy Pyongyang". The war drills are getting into full swing day by day now that all operational commands have been deployed.

No one can vouch when such provocative and dangerous saber-rattling against the north would lead to a total war.

It is the sinister intention of the U.S. and the puppet forces to persistently push the situation to the phase of a war, using the incident of "mine explosion" as a pretext of waging joint military drills.

Owing to the action of the U.S. and the puppet military hooligans, the outbreak of a nuclear war has become a matter of time on the peninsula with the nation's destiny exposed to constant threat.

The target of the joint military drills is to hurt the dignified social system of the DPRK by force of arms. Therefore, it is an inviolable right of the DPRK to take self-defensive measures one after another to defend its sovereignty and supreme interests.

The recent statement issued by a spokesman for the National Defence Commission of the DPRK solemnly declared that its military counteraction will increase as the joint military drills gets intensified. This is not an empty talk.