Pyongyang, August 22 (KCNA) -- An unprecedented large-scale thermonuclear war is approaching the Korean Peninsula every moment as reality.

On Aug. 21, the U.S. and the south Korean puppet group started the largest-ever joint military drill "Ulji Freedom Shield" despite our repeated warnings.

The nuclear war drill with huge aggression forces involved will last until Aug. 31. The U.S. mobilized in the drill not only war hardware and troops deployed in the operational area of the Korean Peninsula but also space forces in its mainland for the first time in history.

Such U.S. nuclear strategic assets are expected to be hurled into the drill as a nuclear carrier, a nuclear submarine, B-1B and B-52H.

The aggressive character of the drill is becoming ever more conspicuous as even the war criminal states such as Australia, Canada, France, Britain, Greece, Italy, New Zealand and the Philippines, which entered the last Korean War under the cloak of "UN forces", are participating in the drill.

In this period, the U.S. and other hostile forces are going to wage over 30 joint field maneuvers and other exercises for an actual war to invade the north in all the operation areas, including ground, sea, air and space.

The bosses of the U.S., Japan and the south Korean puppet group met at the Camp David Resort near Washington on Aug. 18 to detail, plan and formulate the nuclear war provocation on the Korean Peninsula. And the drill is being staged for carrying out the agreements even before the ink of agreed documents is dry so the gravity of the situation is further amplified.

If the agreements fabricated at the Camp David Resort are additionally put into practice in the war drill involving human and material resources of the U.S. and other hostile forces and even the vassal forces, the possibility of outbreak of a thermonuclear war on the Korean peninsula will become more realistic.

All the facts go to prove that the danger of the "Ulji Freedom Shield" joint military drill with all possible war resources involved can never be covered up with the words "annual" and "defensive".

It is as clear as noonday that the war rehearsal, daubed with such bellicose rhetoric as "occupation", "annihilation", "decapitation" and "scorched earth" and staged on the "largest scale and content in history", is targeting the DPRK.

The prevailing situation requires the Korean People's Army to take the initiative, offensive and overwhelming action for a war.

The will to punish the hostile forces threatening the sovereignty of our state and the right to existence of our people for decades is waiting for a moment of percussion.

The armed forces of the DPRK will wait for the time. -0-

www.kcna.kp (Juche112.8.22.)