Hong Kong. August 11. INTERFAX - The head of the department of the Central Committee of the Workers ' Party of Korea, Kim Yong Chol, said that Seoul will regret the start of joint military exercises with the United States.
"We will make them feel every hour what a dangerous choice they have made, what a dangerous security crisis they themselves are approaching as a result of a wrong choice," Kim Yong Chol said in a statement published by KCNA.
He recalled that Seoul was given a choice whether to conduct exercises or not.
"But the South Korean authorities have now shown that the peace and trust that they advertised so much whenever the opportunity presented itself was just a play on words," Kim Yong Chol said.
According to him, the South Korean authorities "threw away the chance of improving inter-Korean relations with their own hands and responded to our goodwill with a hostile action."
"It is obvious that since South Korea and the United States have invariably chosen confrontation with our state, then we cannot make any other choice," he said.
A day earlier, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the deputy head of the department of the Central Committee of the Workers ' Party of Korea, Kim Yo-jung, criticized South Korea and the United States for conducting joint military exercises.
In her opinion, the military exercises are "the most vivid expression of the hostile policy of the United States towards the DPRK, aimed at forcibly suppressing our state."
"The joint military exercises are of an aggressive nature, since they are a rehearsal of war and a training of nuclear war, in order to fully prepare for the implementation of the operational plan, the essence of which is a pre - emptive strike against us...," she said.
The sister of the DPRK leader added that in order to establish peace on the Korean peninsula, it is necessary that "the United States withdraw its aggressive troops and military equipment deployed in South Korea."
"As long as American troops remain in South Korea, the root cause of the periodic aggravation of the situation on the Korean peninsula will not disappear," Kim Yo - jung believes.
Joint military exercises of South Korea and the United States are held annually in August.
On Tuesday, both countries began preliminary preparations for the exercises, which are scheduled to start next week.
Pyongyang has long opposed such exercises, condemning them as a rehearsal for an invasion.