Kim Yo Jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), issued the following statement "Evil doer’s audacity can never work on us" on Wednesday:

The regional situation has been plunged deeper into a dangerous vortex due to the U.S.-led hostile forces’ ceaseless military moves.

The U.S., as ever, doesn’t miss the chance for making stereotyped far-fetched assertion with evil doer’s audacity terming our activities pertaining to our right to self-defence a "violation of UNSC resolution" and a "grave threat to regional and international peace and security".

The world should understand the issue correctly.

The U.S., together with Japan and the ROK puppets, are ceaselessly staging military exercises under various codenames against the DPRK almost every week. Witnessing such muscle-flexing alone, one can easily understand the reason why tensions are soaring in the region like a kindled detonating fuse.

The U.S., which kicked off its madcap war drumbeats in the new year through a "joint combat firing drill" with the gangsters of the ROK puppet army on Jan. 4, has frantically staged war drills under various codenames such as "drill of neutralizing CBR weapons storage facilities", "allied cyber training" and "joint special operation drill".

From January 15 the U.S., together with Japan and the ROK puppets, conducted a "joint maritime drill" with the involvement of its nuclear carrier Carl Vinson for four days in the waters off Jeju Island.

On the first day of the drill, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff of the ROK puppet army appeared on the nuclear carrier to make a false show of power, saying "ROK-U.S.-Japan maritime drills have made a core contribution to deterring and coping with the ever-escalating nuclear and missile threats from the north."

In February the U.S., together with the gangsters of the ROK puppet army, were hell-bent on such drills as "joint marine corps drill", "winter joint drill", "joint air drill" and "commanding communication drill". Not content with this, it staged 48 rounds of extremely offensive and provocative war exercises day and night in March, including "joint air strike drill", "joint tactical live-firing drill", "joint drill for air-to-air firing and air-to-ground bombing", "Ssangmae joint air drill" and various outdoor mobile drills, under the signboard of Freedom Shield, the large-scale joint military exercise.

In April, too, the U.S., Japan and ROK puppets have ceaselessly staged reckless military drills with the involvement of U.S. nuclear strategic assets.

On April 2, a tripartite air drill involving U.S. nuclear strategic bomber B-52H was staged. A few days later, a naval drill was kicked off with the U.S. nuclear carrier Theodore Roosevelt involved.

A "joint airborne infiltration drill" was staged on April 18. Furthermore, a "combined joint formation drill," which was launched on April 12 with more than 100 warplanes involved, will last till April 26.

In August last year, the summit meeting of the U.S., Japan and the puppet ROK, held at Camp David in a suburb of Washington, specified, planned and formulated all these nuclear war provocation against the DPRK and decided to stage tripartite military drills annually, and all the above-said drills that have been accordingly staged are "rehearsals" designed to put the U.S. nuclear war scenario against the DPRK into practice.

Entering this year, the U.S. has staged more than 80 rounds of military drills with its lackeys and those individually staged by the ROK puppets total more than 60. This evidently shows who the arch criminals straining the regional situation are.

Nonetheless, the U.S. and its stooges are behaving like a guilty party filing the suit first.

Who are the real criminals disturbing peace and stability?

We will continue to build up our overwhelming and most powerful military muscle to defend our sovereignty and security and regional peace.

No one can break our determination.

If the U.S. persists in its moves to threaten the security of the DPRK, boasting of its strength by rallying its stooges, the security of the U.S. and its allies will be exposed to greater danger.

The U.S. should stop fostering the reckless bravery of its top-class minion ROK.

Of course, a scared dog barks louder, but the bosses of the ROK puppet military gangsters have gone too far in their barks recently.

If they attempt at armed counteraction against the DPRK counting on their master, they will be immediately annihilated.

Rodong Sinmun