3rd LD Writethru: DPRK fires short-range missiles as S. Korea-U.S. war games kick off

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

South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told a press briefing that the DPRK launched two missiles, estimated to be Scud-C ballistic missiles considering altitude, flying velocity and trajectory, 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 on the day when South Korea and the United States kicked off 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 the 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 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."

Seoul and Washington launched their joint annual war games Monday. 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.

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.

Kim said the DPRK's threatening actions and words represent provocations, part of its "intentional" armed protest against the annually-held South Korea-U.S. military exercises of "defensive" nature.

Such measures are a serious challenge to security on the Korean Peninsula and clearly violate resolutions imposed by the UN Security Council, which bans the DPRK from firing ballistic missiles, the spokesman said.

According to Kim, the DPRK launched some 90 rounds of artillery shells and ballistic missiles in eight times before and after the South Korea-U.S. annual war games began in early 2014.

By conducting such provocations, the DPRK intended to escalate tensions on the peninsula to spread feelings of insecurity among South Koreans and pass the bucks of frosty inter-Korean relations to South Korea, said Kim.

A South Korean military official was quoted by Yonhap News Agency as saying that signs of the DPRK preparing for live-fire drills in western waters are being detected, noting that the military is closely monitoring the DPRK's military movement near inter-Korean borders.

Meanwhile, Uriminzokkiri, one of the DPRK's major publicity websites, said in a statement Monday that the DPRK will fire " aimed" shots at any balloons and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) from South Korea carrying anti-DPRK leaflets.

On Oct. 10, 2014, the DPRK fired off machine gun shots against balloons, which were carrying anti-DPRK leaflets, floated by a South Korean civic group, near the demarcation line, triggering a trade in machine gun fires between the two sides.

The DPRK publicity body warned that any South Korea-floated balloons and UAVs will be shot down by DPRK's cannons and missiles, not by some rounds of bullets as seen in October last year. Endi