SEOUL, February 22 (AJP) - North Korea warned on Saturday that it will respond to the “enemies’ military strategic threat” with its own "strategic means," directly naming the Trump administration for the first time.
A statement from the chief of the Information Office at North Korea’s Ministry of National Defense on Saturday said, “Since the emergence of the Trump administration, the U.S. and its vassal forces are getting evermore pronounced in their military provocations threatening the security environment of the DPRK.” The official cited the recent dispatch of a B-1B strategic bomber to the Korean Peninsula as an example.
North Korea accused Washington of ramping up provocative military movements in the region, saying, "The U.S. is also mulling again staging the large-scale joint military exercises Freedom Shield, which includes seven rounds of brigade-level joint field maneuvers more compared to that of last year, in March in collusion with ROK in order to push the military tension in the region to an extreme phase."
The ministry further claimed that the U.S. is attempting to justify its nuclear buildup while branding North Korea’s nuclear deterrence as illegitimate, arguing that such efforts "can never work on the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea - North Korea]."
It is highly speculated that Pyongyang is setting the stage to justify future military actions or using the suspension of U.S.-South Korea drills as a potential precondition for talks with Washington.
In recent weeks, North Korea’s Ministry of National Defense has repeatedly issued press statements, responding swiftly to U.S.-South Korea joint drills, strategic weapons deployments, and discussions on North Korea’s denuclearization.
While Pyongyang previously referred broadly to the "U.S." or "U.S. administration" in its statements, this time it directly mentioned the "Trump administration."
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