Seoul, Aug 19 South Korean peace groups held a protest rally Monday against the Asian country's joint military exercise with the United States, which they said has boosted confrontation and war crisis on and around the Korean Peninsula.
The protesters from the Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea (SPARK) civil groups gathered near the presidential office in central Seoul, where the defence ministry is also headquartered, to call for peace on the peninsula, reports Xinhua news agency.
Lifting banners and placards with slogans of "Stop the exercise that intensifies nuclear confrontation and encourages war crisis" and "Stop building the South Korea-US-Japan alliance," the protesters shouted, "Against against against participating in the South Korea-US military exercise."
"Nuclear confrontation and war crisis could end up with a nuclear war, which will bring about the extinction of our people and, if it is expanded, bring about nuclear devastation in Northeast Asia," one of the participants of the rally said.
"Even now, the authorities of South Korea and the United States should immediately stop the joint military exercise that is illegal and causes confrontation and war crisis on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia," he noted.
"We are here to warn you that what this (military exercise) will bring is not peace but war. It is not peace that can be brought about by the South Korea-US-Japan war alliance, nuclear alliance and preemptive strike exercise," said another protester.
The Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise, an annually-staged summertime military exercise featuring field manoeuvers, a computer-simulated command post exercise and civil defence drills, kicked off earlier in the day and was scheduled to continue until August 29.
South Korea has claimed that the UFS exercise is defensive in nature, but North Korea has denounced the exercise as a dress rehearsal for a northward invasion.
During the 11-day exercise, the combined forces planned to expand field training and live-fire drills across multiple domains to strengthen interoperability and showcase their combined capabilities, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.
The JCS noted that the combined forces will further strengthen capability and posture to deter and defend against weapons of mass destruction.
Another group of activists rallied against the UFS exercise near the presidential office, clamouring for the end of the war exercise and the launch of a dialogue between the two Koreas.
"The strengthened interoperability between the forces of South Korea and the United States is nothing more than a deepened subordination of South Korean forces to the US strategic mobilisation," the Korea Peace Appeal, an organiser of the rally, said in a statement.
"The establishment in Asia of the US-led multilateral military cooperation mechanism is very worrisome as it leads to intensifying regional conflicts and escalating war crises," the organiser noted.
It urged the two countries to immediately stop all hostile policies and military actions while restoring communication channels to manage crises and create an environment for dialogue.
The Korea Peace Appeal is a campaign that aims to officially end the 1950-53 Korean War by collecting 100 million signatures. It is joined by more than 370 South Korean civic and religious groups, as well as over 70 international partner organisations.
The peninsula technically remains at war as the fratricidal war ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
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