A DPRK State Affairs Commission spokesman released a statement on Wednesday as regards the planned US-south Korea joint military exercises against the DPRK. The statement said:

We have expressed deep concern over and warned against the joint military drill planned by the US and south Korea with an explicit definition that it is the main factor behind the unavoidable escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula and beyond.

Despite our repeated warnings, the US and south Korea have decided to push ahead with the anti-DPRK drill at the most sensitive period, adding fuel to the simmering anger of the Korean people with their patience fraying at the edges.

The US Defense Department and Joint Chiefs of Staff asserted that they would not allow north Korea's reaction to affect the scale or staging of the planned joint air drill, adding that it is high time to launch a joint drill of such sort and it is aimed at getting fully poised to going to war even tonight.

The US also pays little heed to the deadline of the year-end we set out of great patience and tolerance.

Such moves of the US are an overt breach of the June 12 2018 DPRK-US joint statement adopted on the basis of mutual trust and they are also a total denial of the Singapore agreement which evoked great sensation worldwide.

As we tried hard to reognize the US as dialogue partner, we halted actions that it was concerned about, and have taken every possible confidence-building measure, true to its commitment to stopping military actions that provoke and antagonize the dialogue partner while the negotiations of goodwill were held between the DPRK and the US. Such efforts resulted in the successes the US president has every opportunity to brag about as his own achievements.

We have unselfishly offered things the US president can take pride in but the US has done little in return. If there is anything we have got from the US, it is only a sense of betrayal.

Far from his new initiative to address the “north Korean nuclear issue”, the US persists in the time-worn, unfair approach and continues to create obstacles in the way of improving bilateral relations and terminating hostility.

This year alone, Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises were staged in March with changed codename Alliance 19, and Ulji Freedom Guardian was conducted in August in the name of "the drill for examining wartime operations control transfer". In addition, a number of thinly veiled hostile military actions like special operational drills were taken.

Our official stand is that we cannot stand by any longer at the US’ reckless moves of driving the situation out of control by deciding again on the joint air drill targeted at the dialogue partner, an act of provocation taken at a critical time when DPRK-US relations are on the brink of total failure due to such betrayal of returning evil for good.

While one party backpedals on its commitments and unilaterally takes hostile steps, we find no reason or excuse that the other party should keep its honour. What's more, we have no scope for that now.

Now that the physical movement of threatening our sovereignty and security environment is evident, it is the legitimate, self-defensive right of a sovereign state to take strong countermeasures.

It is our intention and will to respond to dialogue with dialogue and to strength in kind.

Looking back on the past days we spent with outmost patience, we will not have to exercise patience any more.

The US needs to ponder over what it can do in the not-so-long timeframe.

The US had better behave itself with prudence at a sensitive time when the Korean peninsula situation could get back to the starting point due to the joint military exercises, the biggest factor in the vicious cycle of DPRK-US relations.

The US is advised to meditate on what influence the "new path" we could be compelled to take will have on the "future of the US".

If the current situation remains unchanged, the US is most likely to face greater threats and torment with regret in the foreseeable future.