DPRK fires missiles as war games start
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E-mail Xinhua, March 2, 2015
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.
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