PYONGYANG, March 2 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Tuesday criticized planned joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, saying the drills would destroy peace and block denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
The joint drills were "nuclear war exercises aimed at mounting a preemptive attack on the DPRK" and the United States had always stood in the way of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, pursuing only a war to stifle the DPRK, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
The United States was still increasing the nuclear threat through such war exercises, driving the denuclearization process of the peninsula to a collapse, the news agency said.
The report said the denuclearization process of the peninsula could never take even a step forward as long as "the DPRK and the United States remained technically at war."
The KCNA report came ahead of the Key Resolve/Foal Eagle exercise starting in South Korea next Monday.
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