North Korea issues warning to US and South Korea over ‘hostile acts’
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“They must be made to clearly understand how dearly they have to pay for answering our good faith with hostile acts after letting go the opportunity for improved inter-Korean relations,” Kim Yong Chol said in the statement, released on state media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Usually the two Koreas will check in with each other over the hotlines twice a day to ensure smooth relations between the two neighboring nations, but South Korea’s Unification and Defense ministries said Pyongyang did not pick up the phone on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
The US and South Korea began their preliminary training Tuesday, with official computer-simulated drills taking place between August 16 and 26, according to local media.
Speaking on Monday, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said he had no specific response to the North Korean statements but emphasized the drills were “purely defensive” in nature.
Price said the US “harbors no hostile intent” toward North Korea but remained committed to the security of South Korea.
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korea leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday warned that the US and South Korea would “face a more serious security threat” for ignoring repeated warnings against their joint military drills.
She said peace on the Korean Peninsula would never be achieved unless “war equipment deployed by the US in South Korea” is removed.
Drills in 2020 and this year were also scaled back due to the coronavirus pandemic, with training focused on computer simulations, according to local media.
Reuters contributed additional reporting to this article.
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