PYONGYANG: North Korea has urged the United States to stop military drills, with a warning that it may carry out retaliatory strikes if the US commits provocative acts.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the North’s National Defense Commission (NDC), chaired by leader Kim Jong-Un, said that the US government must withdraw its policy of hostility against the North if it wants peace on both the Korean peninsula and the “US mainland”.
“(The United States) must bear it in mind that reckless provocative acts would meet our retaliatory strikes and lead to an all-out war of justice for a final showdown with the United States,” the state news agency quoted a spokesman of the NDC as saying.
The statement further said that “We emphasise again that the United States must withdraw various measures aimed to isolate and strangulate us. Dependent upon this are…peace and security, not only on the Korean peninsula but the US mainland as well.”
The comments come after the US launched a two-day joint naval drill on Thursday with South Korea and Japan off the southern coast of the peninsula and that sparked a series of angry responses and threats from Pyongyang.
