North Korea blasted the United States on Sunday for its latest military exercise in South Korea that involved long-range strategic bombers, calling it a reckless provocation that may lead to an all-out war on the Korean Peninsula.
In a signed commentary, the North's official newspaper Rodong Sinmun insisted joint military exercises between South Korean and U.S. forces will only add fuel to explosives ready to blow.
"A simple misjudgment or mistake may lead to the outbreak of a nuclear war and that, in turn, is sure to lead to a new world war," it said. "The U.S. saying it will regularly deploy strategic bombers to the Korean Peninsula is the same as a crazy act of playing fire on top of an ammunitions locker."
The North's renewed rejection of South Korea's joint military exercise with U.S. forces came one day after two B-1B Lancers made a rare trip to South Korea from their air base in Guam to take part in the latest drill apparently aimed at sending a warning to the communist North that test-launched what it claims to be its first intercontinental ballistic missile Tuesday.
Pyongyang is prohibited by a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions from any activities related to the development of nuclear weapons or means to deliver them.
The North Korean newspaper reiterated the country's claim that its nuclear development is justified in the face of what it claims is U.S. hostility towards it.
"U.S. schemes aimed at increasing its threats of nuclear war against the DPRK for its legitimate and justified measures to defend its sovereignty and dignity will not evade self-destruction," it said. (Yonhap)
