N Korea Warns of Security Instability over US-S Korea Drills

21 May 2022, North Korea, Pyongyang: A picture provided by the North Korean state news agency (KCNA) on 21 May 2022 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaking during a meeting of the ruling party's Politburo in Pyongyang, North Korea. (KCNA/dpa)
21 May 2022, North Korea, Pyongyang: A picture provided by the North Korean state news agency (KCNA) on 21 May 2022 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaking during a meeting of the ruling party's Politburo in Pyongyang, North Korea. (KCNA/dpa)
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N Korea Warns of Security Instability over US-S Korea Drills

21 May 2022, North Korea, Pyongyang: A picture provided by the North Korean state news agency (KCNA) on 21 May 2022 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaking during a meeting of the ruling party's Politburo in Pyongyang, North Korea. (KCNA/dpa)
21 May 2022, North Korea, Pyongyang: A picture provided by the North Korean state news agency (KCNA) on 21 May 2022 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaking during a meeting of the ruling party's Politburo in Pyongyang, North Korea. (KCNA/dpa)

North Korea has warned that the United States and South Korea will face “unprecedented” security challenges if they don’t stop their hostile military pressure campaign against the North, including joint military drills.

North Korea views any regular US-South Korean military training as an invasion rehearsal even though the allies have steadfastly said they have no intention of attacking the North. The latest warning came as Washington and Seoul prepare to expand their upcoming summertime training following the North’s provocative run of missile tests this year, The Associated Press said.

“Should the US and its allies opt for military confrontation with us, they would be faced with unprecedented instability security-wise,” Choe Jin, deputy director general of the Institute of Disarmament and Peace, a Foreign Ministry-run think tank, told Associated Press Television News in Pyongyang on Thursday.

Choe said that Washington and Seoul’s joint military drills this year are driving the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war. He accused US and South Korean officials of plotting to discuss the deployment of US nuclear strategic assets during another joint drill set to begin next month.

“The US should keep in mind that it will be treated on a footing of equality when it threatens us with nukes,” Choe said. He said Washington must abandon “its anachronistic and suicidal policy of hostility” toward North Korea or it will face “an undesirable consequence.”

The regular US-South Korea military drills are a major source of animosity on the Korean Peninsula, with North Korea often responding with missile tests or warlike rhetoric.
In May, US President Joe Biden and new South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said after their summit that they would consider expanded joint military exercises to deter North Korean nuclear threats. Biden also reaffirmed the American extended deterrence commitment to South Korea, a reference to a full range of US defense capabilities including nuclear ones.

Their announcement reflected a change in direction from that of their predecessors. Former US President Donald Trump complained about the cost of the US-South Korean military drills, while former South Korean President Moon Jae-in faced criticism that his dovish engagement policy only helped North Korea buy time to perfect its weapons technology. Yoon accused Moon of tilting toward North Korea and away from the United States.

The US and South Korean militaries haven’t officially announced details about their summertime drills including exactly when they would start. But South Korean defense officials said the drills would involve field training for the first time since 2018 along with the existing computer-simulated tabletop exercises.

In recent years, the South Korean and US militaries have cancelled or downsized some of their regular exercises due to concerns about COVID-19 and to support now-stalled US-led diplomacy aimed at convincing North Korea to give up its nuclear program in return for economic and political benefits.

The United States has called on North Korea to resume the dormant diplomacy without any preconditions, but North Korea has countered it won’t return to talks unless the United States first drops its hostile policies against it, in an apparent reference to its military drills with South Korea and the economic sanctions.

This year, North Korea has test-launched a slew of ballistic missiles including nuclear-capable ones designed to attack both the US mainland and South Korea in violation of UN resolutions banning such tests. Observers say North Korea wants to be recognized as a nuclear state and win sanctions relief.

Choe repeated North Korea's previous position that its missile tests are legitimate exercises of its sovereign right to defend the country. He called the recent US and South Korean missile tests “double-standards.”

North Korea hasn’t yet conducted its widely expected nuclear test, which would be the first of its kind in five years. Seoul officials say an ongoing COVID-19 outbreak and opposition from China, its most important ally and biggest aid provider, are likely the reasons why North Korea hasn’t carried out the bomb test.

On Friday, Yoon told reporters that North Korea remains ready to conduct a nuclear test and that South Korea also has measures ready to cope with it.



Germany's Merz Heads for Delicate Talks with Trump

Friedrich Merz, left, wants to maintain good ties with what he has called Germany's 'indispensable' ally, despite Donald Trump's disruptive 'America First' policies. Ludovic MARIN, SAUL LOEB / POOL/AFP/File
Friedrich Merz, left, wants to maintain good ties with what he has called Germany's 'indispensable' ally, despite Donald Trump's disruptive 'America First' policies. Ludovic MARIN, SAUL LOEB / POOL/AFP/File
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Germany's Merz Heads for Delicate Talks with Trump

Friedrich Merz, left, wants to maintain good ties with what he has called Germany's 'indispensable' ally, despite Donald Trump's disruptive 'America First' policies. Ludovic MARIN, SAUL LOEB / POOL/AFP/File
Friedrich Merz, left, wants to maintain good ties with what he has called Germany's 'indispensable' ally, despite Donald Trump's disruptive 'America First' policies. Ludovic MARIN, SAUL LOEB / POOL/AFP/File

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is set to meet with US President Donald Trump on Thursday, hoping to build a personal relationship despite discord over Ukraine and the threat of a trade war.

A month into his job, the conservative Merz, 69, is a staunch transatlanticist at pains to maintain good ties with what he considers post-war Germany's "indispensable" ally, despite Trump's unyielding "America First" stance, said AFP.

Merz will hope that his pledges to sharply increase Germany's NATO defense spending will please Trump, and that he can find common ground on confronting Russia after the mercurial US president voiced growing frustration with President Vladimir Putin.

On Trump's threat to hammer the European Union with sharply higher tariffs, Merz, leader of the bloc's biggest economy, has argued that it must be self-confident in its negotiations with Washington, saying that "we're not supplicants".

Despite the tensions, Merz said he was "looking forward" to his first face-to-face meeting with Trump.

"Our alliance with America was, is, and remains of paramount importance for the security, freedom, and prosperity of Europe," he posted on X late Wednesday.

His office has also voiced confidence that Merz will be spared the kind of public dressing down Trump delivered in the Oval Office to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa.

Merz is looking ahead to his first in-person meeting with Trump "with great calmness and joy", his spokesman Stefan Kornelius said, pointing to their "very good relationship" so far.

"Germany is the third-largest economy in the world, and we have a lot to offer as an economic partner of the USA," Kornelius said.

"At the same time, a very constructive and positive relationship with America is very important to us, for our own economy and for the security of Germany and Europe."

The two leaders -- both with business backgrounds and keen golf players -- are on first-name terms after several phone calls, Kornelius said, and Merz now has Trump's cellphone number on speed dial.

Defense and trade

Merz has been given the honor of staying at Blair House, the presidential guest residence on Pennsylvania Avenue across from the White House.

Merz has even felt comfortable enough to have a little fun at Trump's expense, recently telling a TV interviewer that his every second or third word was "great".

Whatever the personal chemistry, the policy issues are potentially explosive.

Trump launched his roller-coaster series of trade policy shifts in April, with the threat of 50-percent US tariffs on European goods looming.

Merz, who has sat on many corporate boards, is "very experienced in business, too -- the world from which Donald Trump comes," his chancellery chief of staff, Thorsten Frei, told the Funke media group.

On the Ukraine war, where Germany strongly backs Kyiv, Merz will hope to convince Trump to heighten pressure on Putin through new sanctions to persuade him to agree to a ceasefire.

Trump, 78, has recently expressed frustration with Putin, calling him "crazy", but without announcing concrete new measures.

Merz's visit comes ahead of a G7 summit in Canada on June 15-17 and a NATO meeting in The Hague at the end of the month.

Merz has said Germany is willing to follow a plan to raise defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP over coming years, with another 1.5 percent dedicated to security-related infrastructure.

'Calm and reasonable'

Another potential flashpoint issue looms -- the vocal support Trump and some in his administration have given to the far-right and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which came second in February elections.

US Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former Trump adviser Elon Musk have all weighed in in support of the AfD, which in Germany is shunned by all other political parties.

When Germany's domestic intelligence service recently designated the AfD a "right-wing extremist" group, Rubio denounced the step as "tyranny in disguise".

Merz slammed what he labelled "absurd observations" from Washington and said he "would like to encourage the American government... to largely stay out of" German domestic politics.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has also openly criticized Trump, saying this week that he frequently made statements "that seem directed against the fundamental foundations of our coexistence".