North Korea used the anniversary Wednesday of the armistice that halted fighting on the peninsula 69 years ago to warn of the possibility of a "second Korean War,” blaming the U.S. and South Korea for inflaming hostilities.
"The joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea, which are being carried out with a thick gunpowder smell, are exacerbating the situation on the Korean Peninsula,” North Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement, calling the two a "horde of belligerents wanting the wretchedness of war.”
The U.S. and South Korea held joint military exercises this month that involved AH-64E Apache helicopters and F-35A stealth fighter jets. The North Korean statement so far has only been offered on the ministry’s website and not through its official media outlets, indicating that it might be for a domestic audience.