PYONGYANG, August 01. /ITAR-TASS/. A spokesman for the National Peace Committee of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) came forward with a sharp-worded statement addressed to the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK) in view of the intention of the allies to hold exercises codenamed "Ulji Freedom Guardian" this year.

The Committee spokesman warned that "The White House, the Pentagon, the residence of the president of South Korea, and other bases of aggresors and provocateurs may become targets for the strategic and tactical missiles of the DPRK".

According to the Committee data, the intended large-scale exercises of the troops of the US and South Korea "will be held in conditions approximated to combat ones, in line with the strategic concept worked out by them in order to counteract nuclear missile threat from the North".

Such large-scale exercises, the statement points out, "undermine the DPRK's efforts towards improving inter-Korean relations and are a crude military provocation directed against the DPRK". By the "annual and defensive" maneuvers formuls the US seekd to cloak their aggressive and offensive nature, the Committee spokesman said.

The DPRK has been for many years condemning the show of military force by the US and ROK in the area of the Korean Peninsula, asserting in the meantime that the exercises constitute preparation for war.