N Korea says US faces ‘merciless revenge’ over drills

Bloomberg

North Korea threatened the US on Tuesday, saying it will face “merciless revenge” for ignoring Pyongyang’s warnings over annual military drills with South Korea.
The isolated nation said it would be a misjudgment for the US to think that North Korea will “sit comfortably without doing anything,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, citing an unidentified military spoke-sman. The ongoing drills and visits of US military officials to South
Korea create the circumstances for a “mock war” on the Korean peninsula, KCNA said.
The comments represent a more belligerent tone after a war of words between the US and North Korea appeared to have subsided. US President Donald Trump praised North Korean leader
Kim Jong Un last week for waiting to launch missiles over Japan
into waters near Guam, after previously warning of “fire and fury” if he continued to threaten the American homeland.
US Pacific Command chief Harry Harris on Tuesday defended the drills while calling for a diplomatic solution to the North Korea crisis. He said the military needed to be ready for all scenarios, and added that the US has “complete confidence” in its ability to “destroy any missiles that come into our area.”
“We hope for a diplomatic solution to the challenge presented by Kim Jong Un,” Harris told reporters at the Osan Air Base, south of Seoul. “A strong diplomatic effort backed by a strong military effort is key because credible combat power should be a support to diplomacy and not the other way round.”
Tensions increased in July after North Korea conducted two intercontinental ballistic missile tests. Trump has said military force is an option to prevent Kim from gaining an ICBM that could deliver a
nuclear weapon to the US.
On Monday, South Korea President Moon Jae-in said North Korea shouldn’t use the latest round of drills as an excuse for any further provocations. The exercises “are not aimed at raising military tensions on the Korean peninsula at all,” Moon told Cabinet members.
Kim made a visit in early August to a guard post about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from the border with the South, Yonhap News reported, citing unidentified South Korean government officials. The South Korean military considers the visit
an unusual act and is preparing
to prevent a possible military provocation, Yonhap said.