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North Korea slams US, South Korean military exercises

North Korea lashed out yesterday at South Korea and the US for planning annual joint military exercises next month, saying the maneuvers are preparations for an invasion of the communist country.

The six-day exercises -- dubbed Key Resolve and Foal Eagle -- are scheduled to begin on March 2 with 27,000 US troops, along with the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and an undisclosed number of South Korean soldiers.

"Nothing can cover up the invasive nature" of the exercise, the North's state-run Korean Central TV Station reported yesterday, according to Yonhap news agency of South Korea.

The joint military exercises are "nothing but saber rattling to invade the North," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a separate report.

The annual exercises -- previously called RSOI and Foal Eagle -- involve a computer-simulated war game with field drills aimed at improving US and South Korean forces' defense capabilities.

South Korea and the US have characterized them as purely defensive but the North has long claimed the US is bent on invading the country, condemning the annual military drill as a "rehearsal'' for an attack.

The latest denunciation came just a day after the North accused the US of attempting to permanently station its troops in South Korea.

About 28,500 US troops are stationed in South Korea as a deterrent against a North Korean invasion, a legacy of the 1950 to 1953 Korean War. The conflict ended in a ceasefire, not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically still at war.
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