Seoul (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Despite North Korean threats, South Korea and the United States began today joint military exercises. The latter prompted Pyongyang to threaten a nuclear attack against the other two countries and cut its hotline with Seoul, the only telephone line between the halves of the Korean Peninsula.
Called 'Key Resolve', the two-week joint manoeuvres mobilised 10,000 South Korean forces and 3,500 American personnel to test various secret war scenarios, including a nuclear attack.
Pyongyang condemned the exercise as an invasion rehearsal, its media reported, and threatened to scrap the armistice ending the Korean War (1950-53).
South Korea's Unification Ministry confirmed that the hotline was severed. The two sides normally speak twice a day during the week on the hotline, but "The North did not answer our call this morning," a Ministry spokeswoman said.
Set up in 1971, the hotline was severed five times, most recently in 2010, by North Korea.
As tensions persist, Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, said a nuclear war was imminent, noting that North Korea was combat ready with strategic rockets and "diversified surgical nuclear strike mechanisms."
For now, China is not getting involved. Nevertheless, tensions between Pyongyang and the international community, including Beijing, increased after the United Nations Security Council voted for more sanctions against North Korea following its third nuclear test on 12 February.
China, North Korea's last ally, voted in favour of the resolution.
