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SEOUL : Tens of thousands of US and South Korean military troops on Sunday kicked off a massive drill which North Korea has condemned as provocative and aggressive, officials said.
US aircraft carrier Nimitz has been deployed off the Korean peninsula and about 27,000 American troops would taking part in the week-long "Key Resolve" exercise, a spokesman for US troops in South Korea said.
A Joint Chief of Staff spokesman said "a significant portion" of South Korea's 680,000 troops were participating in the exercise, due to last until Friday, though Seoul disclosed no exact figures.
The US-South Korean manoeuvres came as international efforts to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons programmes were in a stalemate.
North Korea reacted angrily, with Pyongyang's cabinet-published newspaper Minju Joson Saturday denouncing the drill as preparing "a war of aggression" against the communist state.
The United States "had better make a switchover in its criminal hostile policy...instead of resorting to reckless manoeuvres for a war of aggression against the DPRK (North Korea)," Minju Joson said.
"The South Korean authorities would be well advised to stop conspiring with the US in its war of aggression against the DPRK."
US and South Korean authorities have defended the drill as "a defensive-oriented exercise" to test military readiness, the US-led combined forces command (CFC) said in a statement Thursday.
"Key Resolve, as with all other CFC exercises, is a defensive oriented exercise and designed to improve the command's ability to defend the ROK (South Korea) against external aggression," it said.
There are currently some 28,000 US troops backing up South Korea's forces against any threat from the North's 1.1 million-member military, following the 1950-53 Korean War.
A US military spokesman in Seoul said Sunday 27,000 US troops, including 15,000 from US mainland and other bases out of the Korean peninsula, were taking part in the joint drill.
The 97,000-ton USS Nimitz arrived at the South's southern port of Busan Thursday for the first time to support the drill, when two US Aegis-equipped destroyers also reached the eastern port of Donghae.
The USS Ohio, a nuclear-powered submarine with Tomahawk guided cruise missiles, and US Stryker units of armoured combat vehicles also came to South Korea earlier last month to take part in the exercise.
The drill began as efforts to disarm North Korea remained in limbo.
North Korea staged its first nuclear test in October 2006, but later returned to six-party talks grouping the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan.
The countries agreed in February last year to an aid-for-disarmament deal aimed at ending the North's nuclear programmes.
But the deal has been held up since Pyongyang missed a year-end deadline to disable its nuclear facilities and declare all relevant programmes. - AFP/ch
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