North Korea calls Ulchi Focus Lens
exercise 'threat to peace and stability'
By Jim Lea, Osan bureau chief
The ongoing U.S.-South Korea Ulchi Focus Lens military exercise is a "grave threat
to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula," the North Korean government said
Wednesday.
A dispatch by the state-operated Korean Central News Agency monitored in Seoul quoted a
North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying the drill "is in contravention of
the June 15 North-South Joint Declaration."
North and South Korea issued the joint declaration during last year’s inter-Korean
summit.
The exercise, which began Monday, is an annual South Korean-U.S. Combined Forces
Command exercise to evaluate and improve procedures, plans and systems that would be used
in a war on the peninsula.
It is primarily a computer simulation exercise with no field maneuvers involved.
About 10,000 U.S. troops — some deployed to South Korea from the United States,
Japan and Guam — are participating in the drill. The South Korean Defense Ministry
has declined to say how many of its troops are involved.
The exercise ends Friday.
The North Korean foreign minister said Ulchi Focus Lens includes "not only landing
operations and river-crossing exercises, but a mock ‘cyber warfare drill.’
"The joint military exercises for aggression staged one after another by the
United States goes to clearly prove that [Washington] is in reality pushing forward its
attempt to stifle [the North] by force of arms any time by resorting to more modern means
and methods although it is loudmouthed about dialogue with [the North]," the
spokesman said.
North Korea also demanded an immediate pullout of the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in
the South and for Washington to withdraw what the North calls "preconditions" to
resuming U.S.-North Korean dialogue.
President Bush said in June that he was ready to resume talks with Pyongyang after a
five-month hiatus during which Washington conducted a comprehensive review of its policy
toward the North.
Bush proposed that the North’s nuclear and missile programs and reduction of its
huge conventional warfare forces be agenda items.
The North rejected those proposals, calling them "preconditions" to resuming
dialogue and saying it would never discuss such matters with Washington.
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