North Korea Criticizes South Korea's Role in RIMPAC Drill

According to Lianhe Zaobao citing Reuters, North Korea's state media criticized South Korea's participation in the U.S.-led RIMPAC naval exercise and called South Korea a “puppet.” North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said Seoul and Washington must bear responsibility for any “unpredictable escalation” in the region, after the South Korean navy for the first time served as the command party for the maritime drill held in Hawaii last week. RIMPAC, billed as the world’s largest international maritime exercise, is held every two years and drew about 30 countries this year, including Japan, Canada and Australia, according to the exercise’s website. The agency also said the drill was not merely a routine exercise against a hypothetical enemy, but a “war rehearsal” by the United States and its allies targeting Indo-Pacific countries. It further criticized a joint U.S.-South Korea Marine Corps drill and said an air exercise simulated the U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship USS Essex “penetrating deep behind enemy lines.”