PYONGYANG, North Korea, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- North Korea denounced a planned joint military exercise between South Korea and the United States, warning it may hurt the North's disarmament process.
U.S. and South Korean troops plan to jointly conduct the world's largest simulation exercise on Aug. 20-31. The U.S. military in Seoul said the regular computer-simulated war game was purely defensive -- "designed to train, evaluate and improve combined and joint procedures."
But North Korea Friday described the military drill as an "intolerable act of provocation" aimed at "stifling" North Korea with force, saying it would drive the Korean peninsula to "the phase of an extreme confrontation."
In a statement, the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said the exercise "poses obstacles to efforts to resolve" the nuclear standoff.
The North "will further solidify our war deterrent," referring to its nuclear weapons programs, said the statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
