North Korea yesterday lashed out at a live-fire drill the US and South Korea staged in a show of force against Pyongyang, accusing Washington of pushing the peninsula to the “tipping point” of nuclear war.
The allies held the rare live-fire drill as tensions grew over the Korean Peninsula following the North’s first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test on Tuesday.
The test sparked global alarm as it suggested North Korea now possessed an ICBM capable of reaching Alaska, a major milestone.
Friday’s drill, designed to “sternly respond” to potential missile launches by the North, saw two US bombers destroy “enemy” missile batteries on a training range in South Korea and South Korean jets mount precision strikes against underground command posts.
The North’s state-run Rodong Sinmun accused Washington and Seoul of ratcheting up tensions with the drill, in an editorial titled “Don’t play with fire on a powder keg,” with an English-language version provided by the Korean Central News Agency.
“The US, with its dangerous military provocation, is pushing the risk of a nuclear war on the peninsula to a tipping point,” it said, describing the peninsula as the “world’s biggest tinderbox.”
The joint drill as a “dangerous military gambit of warmongers who are trying to ignite the fuse of a nuclear war on the peninsula,” the North said, adding: “A small misjudgment or error can immediately lead to the beginning of a nuclear war, which will inevitably lead to another world war.”
The US Missile Defense Agency on Friday said it would soon test an anti-ballistic missile system in Alaska.
Additional reporting by AP
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