N. Korea threatens war

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea vowed yesterday to respond with “powerful nuclear deterrence” to joint United States and South Korean military exercises poised to begin this weekend, saying the drills amount to a provocation that would prompt “retaliatory sacred war.”North Korea routinely threatens war when South Korea and the US hold joint military drills, which Pyongyang sees as a rehearsal for an attack on the communist North. The latest threat comes amid increased tensions on the divided peninsula over the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship that Seoul and Washington blame on Pyongyang.The allies’ defense chiefs announced earlier in the week they would stage the drills to send a clear message to North Korea to stop its “aggressive” behaviour. Forty-six South Korean sailors were killed in the March sinking of the Cheonan, considered the worst military attack on the South since the 1950-53 Korean War.North Korea vehemently denies any involvement and says any punishment would trigger war.Yesterday, North Korea’s powerful National Defence Commission – headed by leader Kim Jong Il – backed that threat by promising a “retaliatory sacred war” against South Korea and the US for what it called a second “unpardonable” provocation after wrongly accusing the North in the Cheonan incident.“The army and people of the (North) will legitimately counter with their powerful nuclear deterrence the largest-ever nuclear war exercises,” the commission said in a statement carried by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency.A day earlier in Hanoi, a North Korean spokesman for the delegation attending a regional security conference warned the drills would draw a “physical response” from Pyongyang.South Korea’s defence ministry said no unusual North Korean military movements were detected.The nuclear-powered USS George Washington supercarrier is already docked in the southern port of Busan for the military games set to begin Sunday. In addition, the US keeps 28 500 troops in South Korea to deter against aggression, a presence that Pyongyang cites as a key reason behind its drive to build nuclear weapons. (AP)