U.S., S. KOREA LAUNCH MILITARY EXERCISES

August 21, 2006

SEOUL, South Korea - U.S. and South Korean forces launched annual joint military exercises Monday, mostly computer-simulated drills that North Korea has labeled a rehearsal for invasion and demanded be canceled.

The exercise took place amid renewed concerns about North Korea after a news report last week said the communist country might be preparing to conduct its first known nuclear test.

The North stoked tensions in the region last month by test-launching seven missiles — including a new long-range model believed capable of reaching the U.S. — drawing U.N. Security Council sanctions.

Some 17,000 troops, including 10,000 Americans, are participating in the exercises named "Ulchi Focus Lens," which have been conducted every year since 1975, said U.S. military spokesman David Oten.

"It's defensive, it's not a provocation," Oten said.

The exercises, which run through Sept. 1, join together command posts from across the Pacific region and in the United States.

"The exercise is designed to train, evaluate and improve combined and joint procedures and plans that are critical to the defense of the peninsula," Oten said.

But the North reacted angrily Monday by vowing to sternly respond and called the military drills an unpardonable military provocation and tantamount to a declaration of war against the communist nation, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing Radio Pyongyang.

Despite repeated U.S. assurances that it has no intention of invading the North, the Pyongyang regime frequently claims that the United States is bent on attacking.

About 29,500 U.S. forces remain deployed in South Korea to help deter the North, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a cease-fire that persists.