Roundup: DPRK fires short-range missiles, warns of "toughest measures" as ROK-U.S. war games kick off

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired two short-range missiles into its eastern waters Monday when South Korea and the United States kick off their joint annual war games.

A South Korean Defense Ministry official was quoted as saying that the DPRK fired two missiles, estimated to be Scud ballistic missiles, from 6:32 a.m. to 6:41 a.m. local time from Nampo areas, South Pyongan Province.

Those missiles, launched from Nampo, the DPRK's western coast city located southwest of capital Pyongyang, flied about 490 km across its territory into eastern waters

The launch came when South Korea and the United States launched their joint annual military exercises "Key Resolve" and "Foal Eagle" despite strong opposition from the DPRK.

Meanwhile, an unnamed spokesman for the DPRK's General Staff of the Korean People's Army issued a statement warning of "toughest measures" to retaliate against military exercises.

The army of the DPRK "will never remain a passive onlooker" to the drills, the statement said.

The retaliatory measures will include "all the ground, sea, underwater, air and cyber striking means" and the country's armed forces "are fully ready" to strike their designated targets.

Pyongyang said the "Key Resolve" and "Foal Eagle" war games which will last till April 24 are "dangerous nuclear war drills for invading the DPRK as they are aimed at swiftly hurling and forward-deploying the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces in contingency on the Korean Peninsula."

"Those drills are the most undisguised infringement upon the DPRK's sovereignty and dignity and a grave military provocation to it for which they can never excuse," the statement said.

The Korean Peninsula situation "is again inching close to the brink of a war," it noted.

Pyongyang warned that its armed forces "will watch with a high degree of combat alertness the dangerous saber-rattling of the U.S. imperialists and their followers" and "will never allow their slightest intrusion into the DPRK's territory."

The "Key Resolve" command post exercise will be held from March 2 to March 13, mobilizing about 10,000 South Korean troops and 8,600 U.S. forces, including 6,750 American soldiers from overseas, according to the Combined Forces Command.

The "Foal Eagle" field training exercise will be conducted from March 2 to April 24, involving about 200,000 South Korean troops and 3,700 American soldiers, including 3,500 U.S. forces from overseas.

South Korea and the United States claim they are annually-held drills of "defensive" nature to ensure defense readiness of the combined forces, but the DPRK said it is simply "crafty sophism to conceal their reckless preemptive nuclear attack on the DPRK."

In early January, Pyongyang offered to "temporarily suspend" its nuclear tests if the United States agrees to temporarily halt joint military exercises with South Korea this year. But the proposal was flatly rejected by the two countries.

The U.S. State Department responded by saying that the DPRK statement "inappropriately" links routine U.S.-South Korean exercises to the possibility of a nuclear test and called the proposal an "implicit threat". Endi