Military exercise to proceed despite NKorean objections: US

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States said yesterday that a military exercise scheduled this month with South Korea would proceed despite a warning by North Korea that they could disrupt a nuclear disarmament deal.

"I'm pretty sure that if there are exercises planned between the United States and South Korea that they will in fact move forward," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey.

"And, of course, the history of defense cooperation and the alliance between the United States and South Korea is longstanding (and) exercises of this nature go on all the time and I fully expect they will continue to do so," he said.

The annual Ulchi Focus Lens exercise, to be held this year from August 20-31, will coincide with a planned inter-Korean summit from August 28-30 in Pyongyang.

The North, which has previously denounced the drill as an "intolerable act of provocation," has warned it would take strong countermeasures against it.

A North Korean army statement, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, protesting the exercise has reportedly been handed over to the US-led United Nations Command at a colonel-level meeting at Panmunjom on the inter-Korean border.

"The US will be held wholly responsible for the catastrophic impact the ... sabre-rattling will have on the implementation of the February 13 agreement and the six-party talks," it said, referring to the nuclear disarmament deal.

In February, the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan reached a deal for energy-starved North Korea to receive one million tons of fuel oil or equivalent aid, and diplomatic concessions, in return for scrapping its nuclear weapons programs.

In response the North shut down its main nuclear reactor complex last month -- its first commitment under the agreement.