SEOUL — South Korea and the United States launched joint drills Monday involving thousands of troops, defying North Korea’s apocalyptic threats to repudiate the 60-year-old Korean War armistice in retaliation.
The start of the two-week “Key Resolve” exercise follows a week of escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula, with North Korea threatening nuclear war over U.N. sanctions adopted after its third atomic test last month. Pyongyang has condemned the annual joint maneuvers as a provocative invasion rehearsal and announced that — effective Monday — it was scrapping the 1953 armistice and voiding nonaggression treaties signed with the South.
The South’s Unification Ministry confirmed that the North appeared to have carried through on another promise to cut the hotline between Pyongyang and Seoul.
“The North did not answer our call this morning,” a ministry spokeswoman said.
The hotline was installed in 1971, and the North has severed it on five occasions in the past — most recently in 2010.
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