Kim Yo Jong warns of "overwhelming special means"...nuclear threat over ROK-US exercise

[Financial News] Kim Yo Jong, Head of a Department of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, warned on the 10th that the ROK-US Combined Military Exercise "Freedom Shield" (FS) would lead to horrific consequences. Her statement came only a day after the combined exercise began.
She threatened, "The military muscle-flexing games staged by hostile forces that approach and encroach upon the security sphere of our state could easily bring about consequences too horrible to imagine."
Kim Yo Jong delivered these remarks in a statement released through the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) under the title "Our state's will to safeguard peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in the region is firm." She condemned the FS exercise that started the previous day as "a provocative and aggressive war rehearsal staged by those who scheme and plan confrontation with our state."
In particular, she declared, "With destructive power loaded with all available special means, which can only be overwhelming, we will firmly control the strategic threats to national and regional security through the responsible exercise of that deterrent." The term "overwhelming special means" is seen as a reference to nuclear weapons.
She went on, "Recent global geopolitical crises and various international events show that, in all the military maneuvers of hostile states carried out with field forces, there is no separate distinction between defense and offense, nor between exercises and actual combat." She stressed, "They must be suppressed by an overwhelmingly superior and preemptive ultra-strong offensive, not by responses based on reciprocity or proportionality." The references to "global geopolitical crises" and "various international events" point to the conflict involving the United States of America, Israel, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Kim Yo Jong also argued, "No matter what justification they put forward or how they adjust the elements of the exercise, the clearly confrontational nature of a high-intensity, large-scale actual war drill staged in collusion by the most hostile forces right on our doorstep does not change in the slightest."
Recalling Kim Jong Un’s remark that "the strongest offensive power is the most reliable deterrent," she demanded, "The enemies must never attempt to test our patience, will, or capabilities."
The Freedom Shield (FS) phase of the ROK-US Combined Military Exercise is being conducted from the 9th to the 19th. This year’s FS involves about 18,000 troops, a similar level to last year. However, the number of Field Training Exercises (FTX), in which actual troops maneuver in the field, is planned at 22 in total, less than half of the 51 FTX events conducted during last March’s FS exercise.
rainman@fnnews.com Kim Kyung-soo Reporter