March 8, 2010
SEOUL (AFP) - Tens of thousands of US and South Korean troops Monday began an annual military exercise despite threats from North Korea, which claims the drill is a preparation for nuclear war.
The ten-day Key Resolve/Foal Eagle drill involves 18,000 US troops including 10,000 not based in Korea and 20,000
South Korean troops, said a spokesman for the Combined Forces Command.
Troop numbers are smaller than last year and no US aircraft carrier will be involved, but the spokesman said the size of the drill was guided only by operational reasons.
South Korea and the United States, which stations 28,500 troops in the country, say the exercise is purely defensive.
The North habitually blasts it as a prelude to invasion and threatens counter-measures, although the exercise normally passes off without major incident.
The communist state's military Sunday threatened "merciless physical force" in response to any attack and said it was no longer bound by the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
It also vowed to halt nuclear disarmament efforts and strengthen its atomic arsenal.
The North is under pressure to return to six-nation nuclear disarmament talks which it abandoned last April, a month before staging a second nuclear test.
