Japan protests South Korean military drills near contested islands

JAPAN - South Korea has angered Japan by staging military drills near a contested island chain, even as it discusses scaling back joint ‘war games’ with the US to deescalate tensions with North Korea.

The South Korean military dispatched six warships, including the 3,200-ton destroyer Yangmanchun, and aircraft including F-15K fighter jets and Black Hawk helicopters to practice the defense of what South Korea calls the Dokdo Islands in waters east of the Korean Peninsula.

The islands are also claimed by Japan, where they are known as the Takeshima.

The South Korean drills, which it usually conducts twice a year, are expected to last two days.

Japan’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday called on South Korea to stop the exercises.

“From Japan’s position on territorial right of Takeshima, we can’t accept this case at all and it is extremely regrettable,” a ministry statement said.

The South Korean drills come less than a week after US President Donald Trump said Washington would stop ‘war games’ with Seoul in an effort to ease tensions during nuclear negotiations with North Korea and to save money. “Under the circumstances, that we’re negotiating a very comprehensive complete deal, I think it’s inappropriate to have war games ... It is something that (North Korea) very much appreciated,” Trump said at a news conference in Singapore after meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump’s announcement appeared to catch the US military and US allies in South Korea and Japan off guard, and a statement from the US military over the weekend said it was still evaluating how Trump’s plan would be implemented.

But reports suggested the President’s plan applied only to large-scale exercises involving thousands of troops. And the ‘war games’ freeze would not affect South Korea’s unilateral exercises like the one it began Monday around the small island chain. (CNN)