They started the high-stake exercises for war against the DPRK on Feb. 27, defying strong opposition at home and abroad. That day news conferences, demos and fierce protests were launched across south Korea.

Civic and public organizations held a joint news conference outside the U.S. military base in Ryongsan, Seoul.

They said that the U.S. and the present "government" cry out for dialogue in public while staging war exercises targeted against the dialogue partner.

Deriding it as hypocrisy, they said the exercises are apparently aiming at attack on the DPRK, not defense in view of their scale, period and characters.

They said in strong terms that the joint war exercises should be immediately stopped.

South Korean veterans of the reunification movement organisations have launched sit-in strike against the joint military exercises around the U.S. embassy in Seoul.

They said that the U.S. is conducting Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military drills, regarding the Korean nation as pawn.

The U.S. is letting south Korean warmongers level guns at the fellow countrymen, blocking the way for achieving peace of the Korean Peninsula, they noted.

If the Lee Myung Bak "government" had implemented the south-north joint declaration, dark clouds of war would not have gathered over this land, they said, calling upon all the people to turn out to end the tragedy of today.