SEOUL (AFP) – US and South Korean troops on Monday launched major annual land, sea and air exercises, amid North Korean threats to turn Seoul into a “sea of flames” in the event of any provocation.
The Key Resolve/Foal Eagle drills are the first of their type since the communist state’s deadly shelling of a South Korean border island last November.
The US and South Korea said the exercises are defensive in nature while training their forces “to respond to any provocation”. North Korea habitually denounces them as a rehearsal for invasion.
“If the aggressors launch provocation for a ‘local war’ the world will witness unprecedented all-out counteraction on the part of the army and people of the DPRK (North Korea),” Pyongyang’s military said Sunday.
