US, S Korea defy North’s warnings, start drills

SEOUL and Washington began annual joint military exercises on Monday, defying warnings from Pyongyang that the war games will jeopardise nuclear negotiations between the US and North Korea.

The dr i l l s come af t e r Pyongyang tested a series of short-range projectiles, calling one of them a “solemn warning” to Seoul against pursuing the mainly computer-simulated drills with Washington.

South Korean defence minister Jeong Kyeong-doo told parliament that the joint exercise began on Monday, adding that Seoul was “clearly maintaining its readiness posture against any military action by North Korea”.

Details about the training have not been disclosed, but a ministry official in Seoul said this year’s exercise will include verifying South Korea’s abilities to take operational control in wartime.

Under the US-South Korea security treaty, a US general will take command of their combined forces in the event of armed conflict.

Analysts say the military activities by both sides could delay talks on the North’s weapons programmes – which have seen it subjected to multiple sets of UN Security Council sanctions – until later this year.

After a year of mutual threats and mounting tensions, US President Donald Trump and the North’s leader Kim Jong-un held a historic meeting in Singapore last year, when Kim signed a vague pledge to work towards “denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.

A second summit in Hanoi in February broke up amid disagreement on sanctions relief and what the North might be willing to give up in return.

Trump and Kim agreed to resume nuclear talks during their impromptu June meeting in the Demilitarised Zone that divides the peninsula, but that working-level dialogue has yet to begin.

The nuclear-armed North has always been infuriated by military exercises between the US and the South, decrying them as rehearsals for invasion.

After the Singapore summit, Trump made a shock announcement halting joint drills, adopting Pyongyang’s own description of them as “provocative” at an extraordinary, freewheeling press conference.

War games known as Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) and scheduled for August last year were subsequently suspended.

And the allies’ biggest annual drills, Foal Eagle and Key Resolve, which took place every spring and involved tens of thousands of troops, were replaced with a shorter “Dong Maeng” or “Alliance” exercise in March.