N. Korea blasts S. Korea-U.S. joint military drill

(ATTN: UPDATES with details, Hyundai chief in N.K.)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Aug. 16 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Sunday denounced an upcoming South
Korea-U.S. military exercise as a "maneuver for a nuclear war" and warned it will
react with "merciless retaliation."
South Korea and the United States are scheduled to stage the Ulji Freedom
Guardian exercise from Monday through Aug. 27. North Korea has typically blasted
such joint drills as war preparation, while the allies say they are purely
defensive.
"The maneuvers for a nuclear war projected by the U.S. imperialists and the Lee
Myung-bak group of traitors are by no means a demonstration of military muscle of
a defensive nature," a spokesman for the Panmunjom Mission of the Korean People's
Army said in a statement.
Only "naive children who have just started learning the four rules of arithmetic"
would believe the South Korean-U.S. logic, the unidentified spokesman said.
"Through these nuclear war exercises the American master and his servant seek to
openly call for escalating their 'sanctions' and 'pressure' upon the DPRK (North
Korea)," he said.
North Korea is currently under international financial sanctions and a trade
embargo for its second nuclear test in May.
"Should the U.S. imperialists and the Lee Myung-bak group threaten the DPRK with
nukes, it will retaliate against them with nukes," the spokesman warned.
"If they tighten 'sanctions' and push 'confrontation' to an extreme phase, the
DPRK will react with a merciless retaliation of its own style and an all-out war
of justice," he said.
The warning came as the chairwoman of South Korea's Hyundai Group, Hyun Jung-eun,
was in North Korea for a seventh day, apparently seeking to meet with the
country's leader Kim Jong-il.
Hyun traveled to North Korea Monday on what was supposed to be a three-day
mission to win the release of an employee detained there since March. The Hyundai
worker, Yu Seong-jin, was freed and returned home Thursday, but Hyun has delayed
her return until Sunday in an apparent bid to resume Hyundai's tourism projects
and other suspended ventures in the North.
The North Korean military warning clouds any chance of a meeting with Kim if it
does not come before the joint drill kicks off.
This year's exercise will involve about 56,000 South Korean soldiers and about
10,000 American soldiers stationed in South Korea and overseas.
In an anniversary speech marking Liberation Day on Saturday, South Korean
President Lee Myung-bak proposed talks for arms reduction with North Korea. He
also offered massive economic aid, but conditioned it on North Korea's
denuclearization, a proposal already rejected by the North and a signal that
Lee's hard-line stance remains unchanged, .
hkim@yna.co.kr
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