North Korea has denounced South Korea over its joint military exercises with the United States, which are due to begin this week, warning that such actions risked provoking “a serious security crisis.”
The warning comes as the US and South Korea began their preliminary war training games on Tuesday, August 10, with official computer-simulated drills taking place between August 16 and 26, according to local media.
It also comes after Pyongyang stopped responding to a hotline set up between the two Koreas, less than a month after communication was restored following an agreement with Seoul in late July.
Usually, the two countries will check in with each other over the hotlines twice a day to ensure smooth relations between the two nations, but South Korea’s Unification and Defense ministries said Pyongyang did not pick up the phone on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
Kim Yong Chol said in the statement “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 is North Korea’s former spymaster. He also served as former US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo’s counterpart during talks with Washington in 2019. He said authorities in Seoul were “defying the opportunity” to improve relations on the Korean Peninsula by conducting “frantic military exercises regarding our state as the enemy”