Photo Courtesy of CNN: Kim Jon Un and an undisclosed military official.
Rachel Decker
The Paw Print
The American military is on full alert after the U.S. and South Korea participated in annual joint military drills. North Korea announced on Monday that it is ready to go to war with the United States, as well as South Korea. North Korea made it clear that they consider the drills the U.S. and South Korea practice for an anticipatory strike against the North.
“Hundreds of thousands of troops are poised for a war carrying nuclear war equipment,” KCNA, a North Korean news agency, reported to U.S. military officials. Over the years, the international community has been talking and negotiating with North Korea about their nuclear program. After the death of their leader, Kim Jong Il, the North Korean government had said they would suspend its uranium enrichment in exchange for food assistance. This agreement was part of a deal that had been announced right around the time of Kim Jong Il’s death. However, plans for renewed diplomacy with North Korea aimed at ending the nuclear program were jeopardized by Jung Il’s unexpected death.
So far though, recent talks between North Korea and the United States have resulted in minimal progress. The talks officially ended last Friday. They were the first high-priority talks with North Korea’s new leader Kim Jong Un.
The drills that the United States ran with South Korea were not new. Both countries regularly hold the drills, known as the Key Resolve military drills. There were over 2,100 American troops and South Korean troops this year. Washington has announced that the exercises are “purely defensive in nature and unrelated to any geopolitical events”, according to a statement made in an article on MSNBC.
The problem with the drills is that North Korea accuses them of being war provocations. In 2010, North Korean soldiers fired upon and killed two South Korean marines, as well as two civilians. North Korea claimed that is forces were only responding to a military drill they found threatening. Kim Jong Il ordered them to “make a powerful retaliatory strike at the enemy, should the enemy intrude even 0.001 mm into the waters of the country where its sovereignty is exercised,” North Korea’s KCNA reported.
What’s Been Said…