PYONGYANG Pyongyang: North Korea’s Foreign Ministry has accused Japan, the United States and South Korea (ROK) of creating an “Asian version of NATO” for holding trilateral military exercises earlier this month, North Korea’s state news agency KCNA reported on Sunday. On Saturday, Freedom Edge, a three-day military exercise involving Japan, the United States and South Korea in the East China Sea, concluded. The drills, which will be held annually, were designed to boost military cooperation amid tensions on the Korean Peninsula following a three-way summit at Camp David last August over North Korea’s escalating tests of ballistic missiles.
“The US is now claiming that the US-Japan-ROK relationship is just cooperative to strengthen regional stability and security and is not meant to be an Asian version of NATO, but this is nothing but rhetoric to avoid international criticism of the formation of an aggressive bloc,” the ministry said.
At the conclusion of the Camp David summit, the US, Japan and South Korea agreed to respond promptly to any threat against any of them, the statement said. “This, in essence, is reminiscent of NATO’s principle of collective defence,” the ministry said. The three countries already share missile threat data in real time, the statement said. “As NATO conducts annual joint military exercises in all domains, including land, sea, air and cyberspace, the US, Japan and the ROK have decided to regularly conduct trilateral multi-domain joint military exercises,” the Foreign Ministry said. This means that
US-Japan-ROK relations have fully taken on the appearance of an Asian version of NATO.” Unlike AUKUS, the new trilateral military bloc is a “war and aggression mechanism” and is ready to enter into military confrontation with other countries on the orders of Washington, the statement said. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the trilateral military alliance between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo is aimed not only against North Korea, but also to contain Moscow and Beijing. The ministry said the only real threat in the Indo-Pacific region is US policy, while other issues, including North Korea’s missile policy, should be resolved through a collective response.
