S, Korea-US to hold joint military exercises next week

The United States will hold joint military exercises with South Korea next week regardless of North Korea's opposition to them, the State Department said Wednesday.

Heather Nauert, a department spokeswoman, reaffirmed that the computer-based drills will kick off in South Korea Monday despite recent tensions over the North's nuclear and missile programs.

"We will continue to conduct joint military exercises," she told foreign reporters during a briefing, noting that such drills are conducted routinely with many allies around the world.

She went further to reject calls for a so-called "double freeze," or the suspension of the exercises in exchange for a stop to North Korea's provocations. That idea was recently floated by China and Russia.

Nauert declined to comment on whether the exercises could be scaled back, saying it's a question for the Pentagon.

In response to a similar question earlier this week, Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning declined to get into specific exercise scenarios.

"What I will tell you is that it remains focused on readiness of the ROK and U.S. forces, and it remains focused on ensuring the interoperability between those forces exists," he told reporters. ROK is an acronym of South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.

Meanwhile, Nauert made clear the U.S. will not accept a North Korea with nuclear weapons.

"We do not believe there is a place for a nuclearized North Korea," she said, when asked to comment on former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper's remarks that a denuclearized North Korea is no longer "in the cards."

"He's the former. He's no longer serving the U.S. government in that kind of capacity," she said.

The U.S. is willing to hold talks with North Korea if it shows good faith by stopping its nuclear and ballistic missile testing.

"But we are not anywhere near that point yet because North Korea has not stopped its destabilizing activities," she said. (Yonhap)