South Korea, US joint drills likely to anger North

South Korea and the United States said yesterday they would kick off their annual joint military exercises on Monday, setting the stage for a likely surge in tensions with North Korea.

Pyongyang had offered a moratorium on nuclear testing if this year's joint drills were cancelled - a proposal that Washington rejected as an "implicit threat" to carry out a fourth nuclear test.

The Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises are a perennial source of volatile tensions on the divided Korean peninsula. Seoul and Washington insist they are defensive in nature, but Pyongyang views them as provocative rehearsals for invasion.

Key Resolve, which lasts just over a week, is a largely computer-simulated exercise, while the eight-week Foal Eagle drill involves air, ground and naval field training, with around 200,000 Korean and 3,700 US troops.

Both exercises will begin on March 2, with Key Resolve running until March 13 and Foal Eagle winding up on April 24, a South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman said.

North Korea has resorted to missile tests and high-decibel bellicose rhetoric in expressing its displeasure with the exercises in the past.