SEOUL, Aug 23 (NNN-YONHAP) – South Korea’s peace activists, yesterday, cried out for a total stop of the annual South Korea-U.S. military exercise, involving large-scale field manoeuvres, saying, the war rehearsal escalates tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Activists with the Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea (SPARK), held a rally in front of the presidential office in central Seoul, where the defence ministry is headquartered.
SPARK said, the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise, reviving field manoeuvres, suspended for years since the 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, will intensify confrontations between South Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and between the DPRK and the United States. The UFS exercise is set to last until Sept 1. According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The DPRK has denounced it as a dress rehearsal for northward invasion.
The newly-named summertime exercise will reportedly involve 13 field manoeuvres, including those of a regimental grade or higher, which had not been conducted since the Panmunjom Declaration was signed, during the inter-Korean summit in Apr, 2018.
SPARK, a South Korean civic group, demanded a total and immediate stop to the South Korea-U.S. war rehearsal that it said is aggressive in nature.
The more aggressive the South Korea-U.S. military exercise becomes, the more distant the Korean Peninsula will be from peace and denuclearisation, the civic group noted.
In a separate statement, People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD), urged the governments of South Korea and the United States to make efforts to create atmosphere for dialogue with the DPRK.
The civic group said, the aggressive military exercise will harm any dialogue momentum on the Peninsula, and make it more difficult for situation on the Peninsula to improve.
Meanwhile, the JCS said, the field manoeuvres of the UFS exercise will be partly for the full operational capability (FOC) assessment, a key procedure for conditions-based transfer of wartime operational control, over South Korean troops from Washington to Seoul, which South Korea and the United States have agreed upon.
Before the exercise, the two sides conducted preliminary drills last week.– NNN-YONHAP
