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North Korea: Likelihood of War With US 'Established Fact'

by VOA News

   North Korea says a large joint military drill between South Korea and
   the United States has made "an outbreak of war" on the Korean peninsula
   "an established fact."

   "The remaining question now is: when will the war break out?" a
   spokesman for the North's Foreign Ministry asked Thursday in a
   statement issued through state-run KCNA news agency. "We do not wish
   for a war, but shall not hide from it."

   Pyongyang issued the warning as a U.S. B-1B aerial bomber flew over
   South Korea as part of Vigilant Ace, this week's joint U.S.-South
   Korean aerial exercise involving hundreds of warplanes, including an
   unusually large number of the latest generations of American stealth
   fighter jets.

   The annual exercise comes a week after North Korea test-fired a
   powerful new intercontinental ballistic missile experts say is capable
   of reaching the United States. The firing of the new ICBM is one of
   several missile tests conducted by Pyongyang - along with a series of
   nuclear tests - in defiance of international sanctions.

   The high tensions on the peninsula prompted Jeffrey Feltman, the United
   Nations' political affairs chief, to make a rare trip to Pyongyang this
   week for talks with Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho and Vice Minister Pak
   Myong Guk.