North Korea vows military response to US-South Korea drills

The North Korean Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country condemned South Korea on Thursday for conducting joint air force drills with the United States on the Korean Peninsula and promised a reciprocal response from the country’s own armed forces.

“South Korean authorities run against the reconciliation process on the Korean Peninsula and such perfidy greatly disappoints us… Wind naturally brings waves. Since the South Korean authorities together with the United States became overt in their military provocations against our republic, there will be a corresponding response from our military,” the committee’s statement said.

The two-week exercise started on Monday, and are a scaled-back version of the Max Thunder drills. Australian forces will also being taking part in the drills.

Previously, commenting on the military exercises acting US Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan and South Korean Defence Minister Jeong Kyeong Doo noted that the drills were scaled down as a part of a bid to “reduce tension and support our diplomatic efforts to achieve complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula in a final, fully verified manner.”

At the same time, US President Donald Trump explained on Twitter that he wanted to end the drills in order to “save hundreds of millions of dollars for the US for which we are not reimbursed.”