South Korea and US launch war exercises

US and South Korean troops on Monday launched major annual land, sea and air exercises. North Korea has threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of flames" if provoked. The drills are the first of their type since North Korea’s deadly shelling of a South Korean border island last November.

Reuters/Truth Leem

The US and South Korea said the exercises are defensive while training their forces "to respond to any provocation".

"If the aggressors launch provocation for a 'local war' the world will witness unprecedented all-out counteraction on the part of the army and people of the DPRK (North Korea)," Pyongyang's military said Sunday.

"It will also see such merciless counteraction as engulfing Seoul in sea of flames."

The South has had a defence alliance with the United States since the 1950-53 Korean War. Some 28,500 US troops are based there.

The South also accuses the north of torpedoing a warship near the disputed Yellow Sea border in March 2010 with the loss of 46 lives. The North denies it.

Talks between the two broke down in February. Seoul's unification ministry said Pyongyang's latest comments were "not at all helpful" in improving ties.

On Sunday the North's military threatened to open fire at sites from where "rotten videos" and other propaganda material are launched in balloons from South Korea.

The two sides halted cross-border propaganda under a 2004 deal, but the South said it would partially revive the campaign in response to the warship sinking.

The drills launched Monday involve 12,300 US troops and some 200,000 South Korean service members including reservists.

The 11-day Key Resolve drill focuses on computer-based simulations. The Foal Eagle exercise involves field training that will continue until 30 April.

About 30 activists demonstrated Monday outside one of the control centres for the drills at Seongnam, just south of Seoul.