North Korea threatens US again

American forces based in South Korea will "meet a miserable destruction" if they carry out war-simulation drills scheduled for March and April, Pyongyang warned on Sunday.

"If your side ignites a war of aggression by staging the reckless joint military exercises ... at this dangerous time, from that moment your fate will be hung by a thread with every hour," Pak Rim-su, director of the policy department at the North Korea’s National Defense Commission, said in phone conversation to Gen. James Thurman, the commander of US troops in Korea, according the Korean Central News Agency. "You had better bear in mind that those igniting a war are destined to meet a miserable destruction."

The tension between the two countries on the Korean peninsula has started to grow of late because the North’s military made an underground nuclear test just after the launch of a long-range missile, said Reuters. Those nuclear tests, made in spite of UN resolutions, were criticized by the international community.

In Foal Eagle, an annual combined military training exercise between US forces and the South Korean army will include around 10,000 US forces and 200,000 Korean soldiers. This drill will be held from March 1 to April 30. In Key Resolve, an exercise planned for March 11-21 will include about 10,000 South Korean troops and 3,500 US troops.

The war between North and South Korea was fought from 1950 to 1953, and technically has never ended; only a truce was signed at the time. CNN warns that relations on the Korean peninsula have never been so tense. Last week, at the UN Conference of Disarmament, Pyongyang officials said South Korea will meet "final destruction."

Sources:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/23/us-korea-north-idUSBRE91M05220130223

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/23/world/asia/koreas-tension/index.html

http://news.yahoo.com/north-korea-warns-u-forces-destruction-ahead-war-071306123.html