US sets military drills on tense Korean peninsula

SEOUL, July 21 (Reuters) US Forces Korea today announced its next military drills with South Korean troops, a move likely to heighten tensions on the peninsula after North Korea's defiant missile tests on July 5.

Pyongyang routinely denounces joint US and South Korean military exercises, branding them a prelude to an invasion and nuclear war.

In official media reports today it said an official call at South Korea's Pusan port by a US Navy aircraft carrier strike group was part of a plan by ''US imperialists'' to start a nuclear war on the peninsula.

''South Korea and its vicinity are now crowded with huge US aggressor forces keen to make a military strike at the DPRK (North Korea) and stifle it,'' its KCNA news agency reported a top official as saying.

The Navy said the four-day port call by the nuclear-powered USS Enterprise, which ended today, had been routine and previously planned.

The United States, which has about 30,000 troops in South Korea to support the country's more than 650,000 troops, has held joint military drills there for decades without major incident.

US Forces Korea said it would hold its annual joint exercise called Ulchi Focus Lens from August 21 to September 1.

The drills, which test computer systems and command structures, involve about 5,000 US troops on the peninsula, 3,000 US troops in the Pacific and US mainland and an undisclosed number of South Korean troops, a US Forces Korea spokesman said.

REUTERS DKA RN1649