BEIJING - The United States and the Republic of Korea will stage their second joint military exercise on Monday, provoking the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's threat of "severest punishment".

The jointly military exercise will be "one of the largest joint staff directed theatre exercises in the world," said General Walter Sharp, who heads some 28,500 US troops based in the ROK, according AFP.

Responding to the US-ROK new maneuver, DPRK's military threatened on Sunday to launch the "severest punishment" against the ROK for staging the joint exercise, AFP reported.