SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea and the United States are staging annual military drills that North Korea says it will respond to by scrapping the armistice that ended the Korean War and launching a nuclear attack on the U.S.
After Monday's start of the drills involving 10,000 South Korean and 3,500 American troops, Pyongyang reportedly followed through on an earlier vow to cut off a hotline with the South.
Pyongyang has launched a bombast filled propaganda campaign against the drills and last week's U.N. vote to impose new sanctions over the North's Feb. 12 nuclear test.
Pyongyang has vowed before to scrap the 1953 armistice. But recent rhetoric has been more warlike than usual. Pyongyang isn't believed to be able to build a warhead small enough to mount on a long-range missile.
SKorea, US begin drills amid NKorean nuke threat
In this photo taken on Saturday, March 9, 2013, the guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen (DDG 82) arrives to participate in the annual joint military exercises, dubbed Key Resolve, between South Korea and the United States, as South Korean navy sailors wave South Korean and U.S. national flags at a naval port in Donghae, South Korea. South Korea and the U.S. on Monday will kick off an annual military drill amid worries about possible bloodshed following North Korea’s threat to scrap a decades-old war armistice and launch a nuclear attack on the U.S. AP