North Korea's Kim says joint US-South Korea drills show will for war provocation

19/8/2025 7:18

North Korea leader Kim Jong Un said his country needed to rapidly expand its nuclear armament and called U.S.-South Korea military exercises an "obvious

expression of their will to provoke war," state media KCNA reported on Tuesday.



South Korea and its ally the United States kicked off joint military drills this week, including testing an upgraded response to heightened North Korean nuclear threats.



Pyongyang has traditionally criticised those joint drills as rehearsals for invasion and in some cases responded with weapons tests, but Seoul and Washington say they are purely defensive.



The exercises were a "clear expression of stand of openly revealing their intention to remain most hostile and confrontational" to North Korea, Kim said during his visit to a navy destroyer, according to KCNA.