North Korea's military said yesterday that war games by South Korea and US were a prelude to a US military attack and a tactic to compel it to accept US terms in six-party talks on its nuclear program.
The North's comments were the first since the six-country talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions went into a three-week recess last Sunday.
"Its brigandish aim is to wind up its preparations for preemptive attack on the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] and drive the situation on the peninsula to an extreme pitch of tension," the North's official KCNA news agency quoted an unnamed spokesman of the North Korean army as saying, referring to the drills.
South Korean officials say the exercises are largely computer-stimulated drills to test US and South Korean readiness for military emergencies on the Korean Peninsula. They begin later this month and will not involve any mobilization of forces.
The US military says the exercise, named Ulchi Focus Lens, is largely a computer-simulated war game.
The drills are also designed to "force the DPRK to accept the unjust demands raised by the US at the six-party talks," the North Korean army spokesman was quoted as saying.
The North insisted at the six-party talks on retaining the right to operate a civilian nuclear program. Washington wants Pyong-yang to forswear all nuclear programmes in return for energy aid and security guarantees.
"The US side's arrogant action only bars the KPA [Korean People's Army] from expecting anything from the dialogue with the US and reinforces its correct judgment that it is the only way of defending the country and its sovereignty and system to build up deterrence for self-defence," the spokesman was quoted as saying.
The North also said yesterday that high-level military talks cannot resume because of the military exercises, a day after military officers from the two sides failed to agree on a date for the talks.
The last high-level military talks between the two Koreas were held in June 2004. But negotiations have been on hold over mass defections of North Koreans to the South. Official meetings between the two Koreas resumed in May.
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