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S.Korean activists cry out for total stop of S.Korea-U.S. war rehearsal

(Xinhua) 08:53, August 23, 2022

Protestors hold a rally against the South Korea-U.S. military exercise in central Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 22, 2022. South Korea's peace activists on Monday cried out for a total stop of the annual South Korea-U.S. military exercise involving large-scale field maneuvers, saying the war rehearsal escalates tensions on the Korean Peninsula. (Xinhua/Wang Yiliang)

SEOUL, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's peace activists on Monday cried out for a total stop of the annual South Korea-U.S. military exercise involving large-scale field maneuvers, saying the war rehearsal escalates tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Activists with the Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea (SPARK) held a protest rally in front of the presidential office in central Seoul, where the defense ministry is also headquartered.

The SPARK said in a statement that the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise reviving the field maneuvers suspended for the past years since the 2018 Panmunjom Declaration will intensify confrontations between South Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), and between the DPRK and the United States.

The UFS exercise is set to last from Monday through Sept. 1. According to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the DPRK has denounced it as a dress rehearsal for northward invasion.

The newly-named summertime exercise will reportedly involve 13 field maneuvers, including those of a regimental grade or higher which had not been conducted since the Panmunjom Declaration was signed during the inter-Korean summit in April 2018.

The SPARK, a South Korean civic group, demanded a total and immediate stop of the South Korea-U.S. war rehearsal that it said is aggressive in nature.

The more aggressive the South Korea-U.S. military exercise becomes, the more distant the Korean Peninsula will be from peace and denuclearization, the civic group noted.

Protestors from the SPARK chanted slogans "Stop war rehearsal" and held up various placards reading "Stop seeking to establish (South) Korea-U.S.-Japan missile defense, trilateral (military) alliance", or "Reject war rehearsal to mobilize (South) Korean troops for defense of the United States and Japan."

In a separate statement, People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) urged the governments of South Korea and the United States to make efforts to create atmosphere for dialogue with the DPRK.

The civic group said the aggressive military exercise will harm any dialogue momentum on the Peninsula, and make it more difficult for situation on the Peninsula to improve.

Meanwhile, the JCS said the field maneuvers of the UFS exercise will be partly for the full operational capability (FOC) assessment, a key procedure for conditions-based transfer of wartime operational control over South Korean troops from Washington to Seoul, which South Korea and the United States have agreed upon.

Before the UFS exercise, the two sides conducted preliminary drills last week.