North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made yet another visit to a front-line military unit, state media said Tuesday, condemning an annual military exercise in South Korea as a preparation for invasion.
Kim's visit to troops stationed near the eastern part of the inter-Korean border came days after he visited an artillery unit near the tense western sea border with the South and called for "a sacred war" if the country is attacked.
The series of visits came as the North kept up hostile rhetoric against the annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise that South Korea and the United States kicked off last week to test their readiness against North Korean hostilities.
"Noting that the enemies are now staging war drills for aggression despite the repeated warnings," Kim ordered the unit to prepare for the "enemies' attempt for a war of aggression and their methods of military actions," the North's Korean Central News Agency said.
Kim taught the unit in detail where it should focus attention to cope with the tense situation "where a war may break out any moment due to the enemies' on-going desperate moves," the KCNA said.
During his previous inspection of the front-line artillery unit reported on Aug. 18, Kim was quoted as having ordered the unit "to turn the west sea into a graveyard of the invaders."
The 12-day Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise, which began on Aug. 20, was put on hold temporarily Tuesday as Typhoon Bolaven swept across the Korean Peninsula. The computer-simulated game mobilized some 56,000 South Korean troops and about 30,000 U.S. soldiers this year, according to the Combined Forces Command.
Pyongyang has long denounced the joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea, claiming they amount to a prelude to war. Seoul and Washington have countered that the drills are defensive in nature. (Yonhap)