Pyongyang, December 2 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Saturday made public the following statement:

The U.S. is planning to carry out the largest-ever joint aerial drill with its south Korean stooges targeting the DPRK from December 4 to 8 and push the current touch-and-go situation of the Korean peninsula to a flare-up.

More than 230 fighters from the U.S. air force bases in Japan and south Korea including its latest stealth fighters F-22 Raptor and F-35, the U.S. major strategic assets as well as some 12 000 U.S. troops are to participate in the said drill.

The drill would be unprecedented in its size and nature of simulating actual combat situation as well as in the number of the U.S. major strategic assets including F-22 Raptor and F-35 stealth fighters to be involved.

The U.S. is publicly touting the objective of the drill as enhancing the actual combat capability to disable the DPRK's major strategic bases in the early stages of war.

It has just wound up the large-scale nuclear war drill against the DPRK that involved three nuclear powered aircraft carrier strike groups, and they are prompting the speculation that the U.S. nuclear attack on the DPRK is a possible scenario.

The Trump team is begging for nuclear war by staging an extremely dangerous nuclear gamble on the Korean peninsula.

The international community terms the moves of the U.S. very alarming and is keeping a close watch on them with great concern and anxiety as the U.S. is engrossed in making successive military provocations mobilizing greater amount of its nuclear strategic assets than ever, thereby driving the situation of the Korean peninsula to the brink of crisis.

The facts above evidently show who is the real nuclear war maniac and the "nuclear demon" that disrupts and destroys peace of the Korean peninsula and the world.

The moves of the U.S. to "demonize" the DPRK while condemning its legitimate and righteous measures to strengthen the self-defensive nuclear deterrence as a threat to global peace and security can be regarded as a prelude to nuclear war since these moves are geared to forge a pretext for nuclear attack on the DPRK.

As stipulated in the Decree of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK on further consolidating the status of a self-defensive nuclear weapons state, the mission of the state nuclear force of the DPRK is to deter and repel the U.S. invasion and attack against the country, and carry out crushing retaliatory strikes on the bases of aggression.

The latest developments clearly prove once again that peace and security of the Korean peninsula and the world can be maintained only when an effective balance of force is established between the DPRK and the U.S.

The international community should identify who is begging and heading for nuclear war and hold the U.S. totally accountable as the destroyer and disruptor of global peace.

Should the Korean peninsula and the world be embroiled in the crucible of nuclear war because of the reckless nuclear war mania of the U.S., the U.S. will have to accept full responsibility for it. -0-