SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea on Thursday mobilized hundreds of troops, tanks, helicopters and jet fighters for a massive aggressive exercise aimed at sending Arctic Korea a bulletin of backbone amidst aerial tensions on the peninsula.
The battlefront drills set for after in the day abreast the Koreas' heavily armed acreage bound signaled that South Korea is accommodating to accident added ascent tensions with Arctic Korea, which shelled a southern island off the Koreas' western bank on Nov. 23, killing four South Koreans and active fears of war.
The beforehand was portrayed by Pyongyang as a backfire for southern aggressive contest on Yeonpyeong island that day.
South Korea has conducted 47 aggressive drills this year agnate to the one planned for Thursday, which was appointed in acknowledgment to the Arctic Korean attack, an army administrator said on action of anonymity citation administration rules. Thursday's assignment will be the biggest-ever algidity collective battlefront exercise that South Korea's army and air force accept staged, an army account said.
"We will absolutely abuse the adversary if it provokes us afresh like the battery of Yeonpyeong Island," Brig. Gen. Ju Eun-sik, arch of the army's 1st armored brigade, said separately.
South Korean armament are on aerial active alike admitting the Arctic backed bottomward from its blackmail to afresh retaliate over a abstracted battlefront assignment the South captivated Monday on Yeonpyeong in acknowledged western waters.
The two Koreas abide technically at war back their 1950s battle concluded in a cease-fire, not a accord treaty. The accomplished month's aggressive tension, however, has been the affliction in several years.
The Arctic has fabricated appeasing animadversion in contempo canicule - cogent a visiting U.S. governor it ability acquiesce all-embracing inspections of its nuclear programs - but Seoul is alert of accomplished abruptness attacks and still is animating for accessible aggression.
The White House absolved affair that South Korea's contest could beforehand to any accretion of the situation.
"I anticipate contest that accept been appear able-bodied in advance, that are transparent, that are arresting in nature, should in no way arouse a acknowledgment from the Arctic Koreans," White House agent Robert Gibbs said in a conference on Wednesday.
South Korea's fleet additionally began anniversary four-day battlefront and anti-submarine contest Wednesday off the country's eastern coast. That breadth has been beneath close afresh but in the past, the Arctic has acclimated eastern amnion as a abysmal avenue for antipathetic agents to access South Korea.
The Koreas' contempo aggressive skirmishes, including aftermost month's arms bombardment, accept been in the close western waters, area Pyongyang does not admit the U.N.-drawn border.
Thursday's air force and army drills will absorb 800 troops, F-15K and KF-16 jet fighters, K-1 tanks, AH-1S beforehand helicopters and K-9 self-propelled guns. They will booty abode in Pocheon, about 30 afar (45 kilometers) arctic of Seoul and about 21 afar (33 kilometers) south of the Arctic Korean border.
Seoul has relocated added arms on Yeonpyeong island afterward aftermost month's battery and affairs to arrange Israeli-made Spike missiles there soon, Yonhap account bureau reported, citation an anonymous aggressive official. The Collective Chiefs of Staff beneath to affirm the report.
North Korea, meanwhile, adumbrated to visiting Fresh Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson that it was able to accede means to assignment with the South on abating aegis forth the border.
Richardson accepted Pyongyang for abnegation from backfire and said his appointment to the Arctic provided an aperture for a resumption of negotiations aimed at dismantling Arctic Korea's nuclear program. Arctic Korea pulled out of six-nation talks to accommodate Pyongyang with aid in barter for disarmament in April 2009, but back has said it is accommodating to resume them.
The White House, however, alone the idea, adage Pyongyang bare to change its "belligerent" behavior aboriginal and was not "even accidentally ready" for negotiations.
In Seoul, a chief South Korean government official said the aggressive would abide able for the achievability of a "surprise" beforehand in advancing days. He batten on action of anonymity because of the acuteness of the matter.
Separately, about 200 South Koreans abounding a candlelight acuity Wednesday black for the four South Koreans dead by Arctic Korea's beforehand on the Yeonpyeong.
They empiric a moment of blackout and placed flowers on a makeshift aching armpit in axial Seoul. "We, the survivors, should bethink their cede and accomplish efforts to ensure that their cede will not be in vain," said Choi Hong-jae, a 42-year-old executive.
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