SEOUL: The South Korean and US military began an annual major joint exercise yesterday to test defenses against North Korea, a drill denounced by Pyongyang which vowed to strengthen its nuclear deterrent.
More than 30,000 US troops, including most of those based in the South plus 3,000 from overseas, are taking part in the drill known as Ulchi Freedom Guardian, which ends on Aug. 31, the US forces said in a statement.
Seoul’s defense ministry could not say how many South Korean troops were taking part but Yonhap news agency put the number at 56,000.
The drill does not involve field training and is largely a computer-simulated exercise, with troops staying at their normal bases.
US and South Korean forces insist it is defensive while the North called it a drill for a preemptive nuclear attack.
“The prevailing situation requires (North Korea) to bolster up the war deterrent physically and goes to prove that it was entirely just when it determined to fully reexamine the nuclear issue,” the North’s foreign ministry said.
The war deterrent “serves as a just means for retaliation”, it said in a statement published by state media.
“This is an all-powerful treasured sword for protecting the sovereignty of the country and a powerful means for deterring the war on the Korean peninsula,” the ministry said.
General James Thurman, commander of the 28,500 US troops based in the South, called Ulchi Freedom Guardian “a key exercise in strengthening the readiness of Republic of Korea (South Korean) and US forces”. On the eve of the exercise, the North’s leader Kim Jong-Un visited a frontline artillery unit that carried out the deadly 2010 bombardment of a South Korean island near the disputed western sea border. Kim praised its personnel as heroes and told them never to tolerate enemy aggression, the North’s official news agency reported Saturday.
The two Koreas have remained technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, without a subsequent peace treaty.
Cross-border tensions have been high since the South accused the North of torpedoing one of its warships with the loss of 46 lives in March 2010.
The North denied the charge but shelled the border island in November that year, killing four South Koreans.
About 20 activists gathered outside the biggest US army base in Seoul’s Yongsan district to protest at the exercise, displaying banners reading “Stop UFG (Ulchi Freedom Guardian)!” and “Sign Peace Treaty”. “This is a war game and a physical threat to the North,” they said in a statement, adding that the drill heightens tensions on the peninsula.
Separately, South Korea’s ruling party overwhelmingly voted for the daughter of an assassinated dictator to be its presidential candidate yesterday, the first time a major party has chosen a woman to run for the post.
Veteran politician Park Geun-Hye — whose mother was killed by a pro-North Korean agent — secured a landslide 84 percent of the vote to easily see off four male challengers at the primary of the conservative New Frontier Party.
Opinion polls show her as current favourite to win the presidency in the Dec. 19 vote.
Park, now 60, had narrowly lost out to Lee Myung-Bak in the party’s 2007 primary. Lee went on to become president but the country’s leaders are restricted to a single five-year term.
Beaming broadly, Park accepted a bouquet of flowers from party leaders and promised to secure the presidency and create a country “full of dreams and hope”.
She reiterated a commitment to “economic democratization”, in a country with a growing wealth gap and high youth unemployment, and said she would work to improve welfare schemes and create jobs. Park promised to make a clean and transparent government, eradicate corruption, which has tarnished Lee’s administration, and safeguard the nation against external threats.
“I, Park Geun-Hye, will not tolerate any actions that threaten our people or damage our sovereignty,” she said in an acceptance speech.
