Intl desk, Mar 05: North Korea’s foreign ministry on Sunday called on the United Nations to demand an immediate halt to combined military drills by the United States and South Korea, saying they were raising tensions that threaten to spiral out of control.
The drills and rhetoric from the allies are “irresponsibly raising the level of confrontation,” Kim Son Gyong, vice foreign minister for international organisations, said in a statement carried by state news agency KCNA.
North Korea on Saturday blamed the United States for what it said was the collapse of international arms control systems and said Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons were a just response to ensure the balance of power in the region.
The allies also conducted a combined air drill with an American long-range bomber and South Korean fighter aircraft on Friday, and have been staging weeks of exercises for special rations troops.
It is regrettable that the U.N. has been consistently silent on the exercises, which have a “clear aggressive nature,” he said.
Last month Kim issued a statement saying UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been “extremely unfair, unbalanced” on North Korea’s missile tests.
Source: Reuters
