South Korea military warns North of strong retaliation

South Korea’s military Wednesday warned North Korea of strong retaliation if it goes ahead with its provocations, the official state news agency Yonhap reported.The warning was a response to the communist country’s threat of attacks over an annual joint military exercise by Seoul and Washington due to start next week.In a statement, the South Korean military said that if the North provokes the South again, it will “strongly and sternly” punish the North Korean leadership, not to mention the origin of the provocation and its supporting forces.On Tuesday North’s military threatened to scrap the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War, citing tensions over South Korean-US joint military exercises and warned a “precise” strike at any time.A two-month field training exercise called Foal Eagle kicked off last week and computer-simulated drills named Key Resolve will be held from March 11-21.“The North had already received notice that South Korea-US drills are defensive in nature,” said the statement read by Army Major General Kim Yong-hyun, a senior official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a press conference.“If North Korea goes ahead with provocations and threatens the lives and safety of South Koreans, our military will strongly and sternly retaliate against the command and its supporting forces. We want to make it clear that (our military) has made all preparations to do that.