Pyongyang, July 8 (KCNA) -- Kim Yo Jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, released the following press statement on July 7:

The ROK military gangsters recently kicked off live ammunition firing drills on the ground and in the sea simultaneously near the southern border of the DPRK.

On June 26, they resumed their maritime firing drill that had been halted for a while in the biggest hotspot of the West Sea of Korea. They also launched artillery firing drills near the front, including eastern and western sectors along the southern border, all at once on July 2.

Not content with this, the impudent enemy announced their plan to regularly stage artillery firing drills and task forces' training near the border of the DPRK and kick off various other military exercises such as large-scale combined outdoor mobile drill and joint firing drill of army and navy, in particular.

I affirm that such an undisguised war game being staged by the enemy near the border of the DPRK is just an inexcusable and explicit provocation that aggravates the situation.

"War energy" has been over-concentrated on the Korean peninsula and its vicinity to reach the brink of explosion due to various war games of the U.S. and other hostile forces and ceaseless deployment of their cutting-edge war hardware.

Freedom Edge, the first multi-domain joint military exercises between the U.S., Japan and the ROK staged shortly ago in the waters near the DPRK, was the height of confrontational hysteria against it. The war drumbeats clearly showed that the U.S. and other hostile forces' rash maneuvers for military hegemony in the region have crossed the red line.

A touch-and-go situation is prevailing. Clear to everyone is the riskiness of the above-said reckless live ammunition firing drills of the ROK army coming nearer to the border of the DPRK under such situation.

Then, the question is why the enemy kicked off such war drills near the border, suicidal hysteria, for which they will have to sustain terrible disaster.

The world should pay attention to the fact that the number of people petitioning for proposing a bill on impeachment of Yoon Suk Yeol has exceeded one million as of now.

The Yoon and his group, plunged into the worst ruling crisis, are attempting an "emergency escape" through the platform of ever-escalating tensions.

That is the reason why the puppet regime persists in destabilizing the regional situation and stirring up the warmongering atmosphere in the face of internal and external criticism of the war maniacs, and even spearheads the extremely dangerous live ammunition drill in the areas near the border.

It would be hard to find current security environment in the past period of relations between the north and the south.

Anyone cannot but acknowledge that the president, elected by people, has made the fate of the ROK hang by a thread.

The war maniacs should judge by themselves what result such desperate war drill hysteria would bring in the end.

In case it is judged according to our criteria that they violated the sovereignty of the DPRK and committed an act tantamount to a declaration of war, our armed forces will immediately carry out its mission and duty assigned by the DPRK Constitution. -0-

www.kcna.kp (Juche113.7.8.)