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South Korea and United States to hold further joint anti-submarine exercises in another show of force against North Korea, officials said Friday, as Pyongyang renewed threats against the drills.
The exercises will be the second in a series of joint maneuvers the allies planned to conduct in response to the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship in March that they blame on the North. The two sides staged large-scale joint naval drills in July followed by South Korea's own naval drills last month.
The drills, set to run from Sunday through Thursday off the Korean peninsula's west coast, will involve about 17,000 U.S. and South Korean troops, seven ships and two submarines as well as aircraft, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. military in Seoul.
The exercises are "designed to send a clear message of deterrence to North Korea, while improving overall alliance anti-submarine warfare capabilities," the U.S. military in Seoul said in a statement.
The announcement of the planned drills comes as China reportedly holds live-ammunition exercises in the Yellow Sea.
An international team of investigators concluded in May that a North Korean torpedo sank the 1,200-ton South Korean warship Cheonan in late March near the Koreas' western maritime border, killing 46 South Korean sailors.
North Korea, which denies any involvement in the sinking, has threatened to retaliate against South Korea and the U.S. over the drills, which Pyongyang sees as a rehearsal for an invasion.
The U.S. keeps 28,500 troops in South Korea in what it says is a deterrent against any possible aggression from North Korea and says it has no intention of invading the North.
"Our military and people will deal a merciless blow if warmongers stage reckless provocation," North Korea's government-run website, Uriminzokkiri, said in a commentary Friday.
North Korea often makes such threats, though the joint maneuvers in July and South Korea's independent exercises took place without incident.
The two Koreas officially remain at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
South Korean and U.S. troops recalled that war Friday, dressing in period uniforms to re-enact a crucial battle, including the blowing up of a bridge. The battle took place in 1950 in a narrow area known as the Pusan Perimeter. U.S. and South Korean troops mounted a desperate defense against advancing North Korean soldiers that was crucial in turning the tide of the war.
North Korea today confirmed it seized a South Korean fishing boat nearly two weeks ago, according to the Yonhap and Xinhua news agencies.
The 41-ton boat called 'Daeseung 55' went missing on August 8 while en-route to a joint fishing area between North and South Korea off the coast of the Korean Peninsula. It was carrying four South Korean and three Chinese crew members.
The North Korean state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Thursday for the first time confirmed that it had seized the ship, but said it was seized on August 10 and not August 8.
"According to our initial investigation, the ship was carrying four South Korean and three Chinese crewmembers, and their testimonies have shown that their ship had violated our exclusive economic zone," the KCNA report said, according to Yonhap.
Tensions between the two Koreas are continuing to rise since a March attack against a South Korean ship, which killed dozens of sailors. A South Korean-led international investigation concluded that North Korea was behind the attack, but North Korea continues to deny any involvement.
In June, Beijing took a public swipe at Pyongyang after North Korean border guards shot and killed three Chinese suspected of smuggling and wounded a fourth. North Korea apologized and told China it would punish those responsible.
On August 9, North Korea fired at least 100 rounds of artillery into its side of the Yellow Sea. It happened just after the end of U.S.-South Korean naval drills in a show of force against Pyongyang, a move that was strongly condemned by North Korea on numerous occasions.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for North Korea's Foreign Ministry said the drills were 'dangerous provocations to ignite a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula.'
"These war maneuvers are a wanton violation of the Armistice Agreement and diametrically run counter to the presidential statement of the UNSC dated July 9, 2010 which calls for settling the pending issues on the Korean Peninsula through dialogue and negotiations in a peaceful manner," the spokesman said.
"Such ceaseless military provocations being perpetrated in utter disregard of the concern of the international community about the tensions running high in the Korean Peninsula and the region go to clearly prove that the U.S. is, indeed, the arch criminal threatening and wrecking the global peace and security. The warmongers are so reckless as to dig their own graves," he added.
The spokesman said North Korea is ready for both dialogue and war and said it has means and methods to defend itself. "
The U.S. and South Korea are currently holding a joint military exercise, the second inside a month, angering both Pyongyang and China. They also plan to conduct an anti-submarine warfare exercise next month, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.
U.S. and South Korean military leaders will train for the next few weeks to defend the South not with missiles, artillery or air power, but with keyboard strokes.
The annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian joint military exercise begins Monday on the Korean peninsula. The largely computer-based exercise will run through Aug. 26 and involve the leadership of virtually all U.S. military units in South Korea, along with South Korean troops and 3,000 American servicemembers brought into the country for the training.
“The focus will be on training service members while exercising senior leaders’ decision-making capabilities,” according to a U.S. Forces Korea news release.
Like the Exercise Key Resolve held every spring, Ulchi Freedom Guardian will be designed to prepare forces to respond “to any potential provocations.”
The United Nations Command alerted North Korean military officials about this month’s exercise at a meeting at the Demilitarized Zone in July. Military officials said the annual exercise is not connected to the ongoing friction between North and South related to the March 26 sinking of the South Korean patrol ship Cheonan that killed 46 South Korean sailors. The North has denied any involvement in the sinking. However, an international team of investigators led by the South determined that a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine was to blame.
South Korea and the U.S. have since taken a number of economic, symbolic and military steps to punish the North for its alleged actions.
Last month, the U.S. and South Korea staged the Invincible Spirit exercise in the Sea of Japan — which Koreans refer to as the East Sea — a four-day event that involved 20 ships, 200 aircraft and 8,000 servicemembers. The two militaries are scheduled to participate in a similar drill in the Yellow Sea sometime in the weeks ahead.
Last week, North Korea fired artillery rounds near the disputed maritime border between the two Koreas in response to five days of naval drills the South staged in the Yellow Sea, known as the West Sea to Koreans.
Until the sinking of the Cheonan, Ulchi Freedom Guardian was to be the first joint exercise led by a South Korean general — a critical benchmark as the South prepared to assume wartime command of its troops starting in 2012. Questions raised in the wake of the sinking prompted the two countries to postpone the transfer date to December 2015.
In the meantime, the top U.S. general in South Korea will maintain operational control of all forces in the country in the event of war, and USFK commander Gen. Walter Sharp – the man now in that position – will lead the Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise.
Nutty North Korea, one of the world's most reclusive nations, is now twittering.
Less than one month after the communist state started broadcasting propaganda clips on YouTube, North Korea opened an account on Thursday with Twitter Inc., the U.S. provider of a highly popular microblogging service.
The opening, announced Saturday on North Korea's official Web site Uriminzokkiri, comes as Pyongyang steps up its propaganda offensive to deny allegations that its Navy torpedoed a South Korean warship in March, killing 46 sailors.
The North's twitter account, which opened under the name @uriminzok, or "our nation" in Korean, contained nine messages as of Sunday morning. Most of them had links to statements or interviews that denounce South Korea and the United States.
Twitter allows users to send texts up to 140 characters long, known as "tweets." Subscribers, or "followers," can choose to receive feeds via mobile phones or personal computers. 225 people were following @uriminzok as of Sunday morning.
Last month, North Korea registered an account with YouTube, uploading clips that praise its leader Kim Jong-il and defend itself against accusations that it attacked the Cheonan warship.
Observers have taken note of North Korea's expanded use of the Internet for its propaganda offensive. In June, a North Korean woman believed to be an agent uploaded a clip praising the communist country on YouTube, drawing media attention here and abroad.
North Korea is also believed to be operating a unit dedicated to hacking foreign websites, including those of the United States and South Korea. Early this year, South Korea set up a cyber defense command to deal with such threats from the North. The Unreported War - Cyber War
Nutty North Korea remains silent on the fate of a South Korean fishing boat and its crew members.
The boat with four South Korean and three Chinese crewmen was detained on last Sunday.
The South Korean government has urged Pyongyang to release them as soon as possible.
And it looks like tension will continue to remain high on the Korean peninsula as South Korea and the US are planning to hold military exercises next month.
Verbal threats from North Korea were an almost daily occurrence in the last few weeks.
It Is Pyongyang's way of showing unhappiness with South Korea for conducting military exercises on its own and also jointly with the US.
Baek Seung Joo, a researcher at Korea Institute for Defence Analysis said: "The reason North Korea fired the shells is because it wanted to test our military and see how we'll react. The fact that North Korea didn't attack our military vessels and fishing boats in that area shows that North Korea's military is also very worried about the consequences."
Experts said the tense situation on the Korean peninsula could drag on.
"With tension high now and North Korea even firing artillery rounds, it's possible this incident will become a long-term issue, and it could make things difficult for inter-Korean ties," Kim Yong Hyun, professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University.
This is especially so since South Korea and the US are planning more military exercises in September in the Yellow Sea.
The aircraft carrier USS George Washington is expected to take part in the drills despite opposition from North Korea and China.
The US and South Korea jointly held massive military exercises last month in a show of force after North Korea sunk a South Korean military vessel in March which killed 46 sailors.
Nutty North Korea fired about 110 rounds of artillery Monday near its disputed sea border with South Korea, the South's military said, amid high tension over the deadly sinking of the South Korean Corvette Cheonan blamed on North Korea.
The firing came shortly after South Korea ended five-day naval drills off the west coast that the North called a rehearsal for an invasion, vowing to retaliate.
About 10 shells landed near the South Korean border island of Byeongryeong, followed by an additional 100 rounds falling near another border island, Yeonpyeong, said a spokesman of the Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul
A North Korea’s shore battery reportedly opened fire around 1730 local time (0830 GMT).
Personnel on South Korean Navy ships and Marines based on the islands saw columns of sea water spouting up after the shells struck.
The waters around the two islands were the site of three recent naval skirmishes between the Koreas — in 1999, 2002 and last November. In March, an explosion struck the Cheonan, a 1,200-ton South Korean Navy Corvette, in those waters, and the ship went down, killing 46 sailors. Strains in the North-South relationship deepened when international investigators fixed blame on the North.
And on Sunday, North Korean authorities seized four South Korean and three Chinese fishermen aboard a 41-ton South Korean fishing boat, the Daeseung for an alleged violation of the North's exclusive economic zone. South Korea has demanded the North quickly release them but the North has not responded. Background: South Korea Says Nutty North Seizes Fishing Boat
South Korea considered the firing to be part of a military drill by North Korea but still bolstered its military readiness against further provocation, the officer said. The South also warned Pyongyang over the firing by naval radio.
All the artillery shells harmlessly landed into the North's waters and caused no damage to the South, a South Korean Joint Chief of Staff officer said.
"This was their way of saying 'We'll respond to military drills with military drills,'" said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean studies.
Yang said the firing is also aimed at highlighting the instability of the Korean peninsula to apply pressure on the United States to start talks on the signing of a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War. The conflict ended with an armistice, thus leaving the peninsula technically at state of war.
Officials in Seoul say North Korea has seized a South Korean fishing boat, the Daeseung that was operating in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) off the eastern coast of the Korean peninsula.
Authorities in the boat's home South Korean port of Pohang said the Daeseung had stopped sending signals after a fishing trip in the Sea of Japan, known in Korea as the East Sea, on Saturday.
South Korea's coast guard said in a statement Sunday that Pyongyang is investigating the fishing vessel for possibly operating in North Korea's exclusive economic zone. The coast guard said it was not clear where the Daeseung was operating when it was seized.
Reports say the Daeseung is being towed to the Northern port of Songjin.
Tension remains high between the Koreas amid a naval exercise carried out by the South in the Yellow Sea.
The South also recently carried out massive naval exercises with US forces in the Sea of Japan.
The latest exercises, in the Yellow Sea, are the South's biggest-ever anti-submarine drills, with some 4,500 personnel taking part near the disputed maritime border.
Thousands of soldiers and sailors are engaging in the drills in waters near where a South Korean naval vessel, the Cheonan, was sunk by an explosion in March.
The South blames the sinking on North Korea, which responded furiously to the exercise near the disputed maritime border. The North's official Korean Central News Agency quoted a government agency (the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland) last week as threatening to use "offensive means beyond imagination" if the South ignites a war.
South Korea has promised an "immediate counter-attack" in case of any provocation from the North.
About 30 warships and submarines, 50 aircraft and 4,500 personnel are involved in the exercise, which runs through Monday.
The drills were scheduled in response to the Cheonan sinking, which killed 46 South Korean sailors. A five-nation investigation concluded that the ship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo fired from a submarine. Pyongyang denies any involvement and has demanded to inspect the evidence.