SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea and the United States will face even greater security threats for going ahead with scheduled joint military drills due to begin this week, Kim Yo Jong, a powerful North Korean official and sister of leader Kim Jong Un said on Tuesday.
South Korea and the United States will begin preliminary military drills on Tuesday, the Yonhap news agency reported on Monday, despite North Korea’s warning that the exercises would set back progress in improving inter-Korean relations.
The drills are an “unwelcome, self-destructive action” that threaten the North Korean people and raises tensions on the Korean peninsula, Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state news agency KCNA.
“The United States and South Korea will face a more serious security threat by ignoring our repeated warnings to push ahead with the dangerous war exercises,” she said.
(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Stephen Coates)
