PYONGYANG, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercise between the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK) is "pushing again the tensions on the Korean Peninsula to the threshold of a war," the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Wednesday.
The exercise poses "the most immediate and open threat" to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and regional security, the agency said in a commentary.
"All the elements of the war drill have been developing into extremely dangerous ones," with its mission, form, scale and training methods evolving every time, it said.
"It is being desperately oriented towards improving the actual fighting capacity in the war exercises against the DPRK and gaining the decisive ascendancy in the security structure in the Korean Peninsula and the rest of the region," said the commentary.
The ROK is turning into not only the training ground of the U.S.-ROK military alliance but also a gathering place of multinational aggression forces and a test ground of modern warfare, it said.
Noting that the threatening maneuvers are getting more serious, the commentary said it is necessary to counter them "with newly-developed strength."
"The DPRK will always put all the enemies violating and threatening its sovereign security in the sighting range for precision and annihilating strike by its retaliatory means," it warned. ■