North Korea condemned the joint military exercise Freedom Edge by South Korea, the U.S., and Japan on June 30, labeling it as an “Asian version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).”
The North Korean Foreign Ministry’s External Policy Office distributed a public statement in the Rodong Sinmun, stating, “We strongly condemn the reckless and provocative military actions targeted at sovereign nations in the region, including the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).” They emphasized, “There is seriousness and danger in the fact that Freedom Edge is a product of the organization, systematization, and materialization of the U.S.-Japan-South Korea military block,” and sternly warned about the fatal consequences it could ultimately lead to.
They argued, “The U.S.-Japan-South Korea’s decision to regularize multi-domain joint military exercises among the three parties, similar to NATO’s annual joint military exercises in various fields such as land, sea, air, and cyber, implies that the U.S.-Japan-South Korea relationship has fully adopted the form of an Asian NATO.”
Moreover, aligning with Russia and China, they added, “The international community unanimously criticizes this exercise as being underlain by the U.S.’s strategic scheme to heighten military tensions in the region, pressurize Russia, and encircle China.”
The External Policy Office mentioned the agreement made in the U.S.-Japan-South Korea summit held at Camp David in the U.S. last August, stating, “If a threat is posed to any one of the three countries, they will immediately cooperate for a joint response,” and claimed, “This essentially recalls NATO’s collective defense principle, which considers an attack on one member country as an attack on all and invokes defensive forces.”
They also emphasized, “The fact that South Korea is openly planning to provide murder equipment to the Zelenskyy Nazi regime while Japan is intensifying anti-Russian pressure following the outbreak of the Ukraine situation, indicates that the relationship between NATO and the U.S.-Japan-South Korea military block has reached a dangerous level.”
North Korea recently signed the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement with Russia, which includes a clause interpreted as automatic military intervention in case of an emergency, effectively restoring the North Korea-Russia military alliance. The public statement seems to assert the legitimacy of the North Korea-Russia treaty and highlight that such movements by North Korea and Russia are a response to the tripartite cooperation of South Korea, the U.S., and Japan.
Meanwhile, South Korea, the U.S., and Japan conducted the multi-domain joint military exercise Freedom Edge in the southern sea of Jeju Island from June 27 to 29.