North Korea seeks UN intervention to stop U.S.-South Korea military drills

Asia-Pacific, News, US March 6, 2023 , by IRIA No Comments

South Korea and the United States announced their 10-day-long military drills on March 2, 2023. In response, North Korea’s foreign ministry called on the United Nations immediately halt to combined military drills as it would raise tensions in the region.

The ten-day-long “Freedom Shield” joint military drills would be held from March 13 to March 23, 2023. Large-scale military drills would include aerial and naval exercises as well as amphibious landing exercises.

Military officials from the U.S. and South Korea released a joint statement in Seoul from Seoul that said that “Freedom Shield is designed to strengthen defense and response capabilities of the Alliance by focusing within the exercise scenario on things such as the changing security environment, DPRK aggression and lessons learned from recent wars and conflicts.”

Last week, the two allies also conducted a combined large-scale air drill that involved at least one U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber and several South Korea F-15K and KF-16 fighter jets. Such exercises have always drawn severe reactions from Pyongyang, usually in form of missile tests of their own as well as nuclear threats.

Pyongyang terms U.S.-South Korea military drills as a practice for the invasion of North Korea. Soon after the two military allies announced their large-scale joint-military exercise in the region, North Korea reacted by stating that such joint exercises are proof that the United States and its allies are hostile and determined to change the regime in the North.

Freedom Shield exercise would be marked as one of the largest joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea since 2017. Since former U.S. President Trump took office in Washington, diplomacy between the U.S. and North Korea improved, however, in recent times, the two sides have come back to square one due to North Korea’s record missile tests and nuclear threats in 2022.

^{US Air Force B-1B bombers and F-16 fighter jets along with South Korean Air Force F-35A fighter jets take part in a joint air drill on February 19, 2023. (Image Credit: South Korean Defense Ministry/via Reuters)}

North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son Gyong released a statement in reaction to the Freedom Shield military drills. He said that the drills and rhetoric from the allies are “irresponsibly raising the level of confrontation.” He called on the United Nations to immediately intervene and halt the U.S. and South Korea’s military activities in the region as it poses a threat to North Korea.

Kim said that “the U.N. and the international community will have to strongly urge the U.S. and South Korea to immediately halt their provocative remarks and joint military exercises.” He further stated his disappointment over Unites Nations’ role in solving the rising threat of conflict in her region by stating that it is regrettable that the UN has been consistently silent on the exercises, which have a “clear aggressive nature.”

Last month Kim issued a statement saying U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been “extremely unfair, unbalanced” against North Korea for its missile tests.