War drills threaten peace efforts between North Korea, US, and South Korea

PYONGYANG PROTESTED AGAINST JOINT US-SOUTH KOREA MILITARY DRILLS, LARGELY COMPUTERSIMULATED, CALLING THEM A REHEARSAL FOR WAR

North Korea launched at least two short-range ballistic missiles on Friday, South Korea’s military said, shortly after Pyongyang described South Korea’s president as “impudent” and vowed that inter-Korean talks are over.

Pyongyang has protested against joint US-South Korea military drills, largely computer-simulated, which kicked off last week, calling them a rehearsal for war. It has also fired several short-range missiles in recent weeks.

Japan’s defence ministry said it did not see any imminent security threat from the latest projectile launch.

North Korea said on ٍSaturday that leader Kim Jong Un supervised a live-fire demonstration of newly developed, shortrange ballistic missiles intended to send a warning to the United States and South Korea over their joint military exercises.

North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Saturday that Kim showed “great satisfaction” over his military’s recent testing activity and vowed to build up “invincible military capabilities no one dares to provoke.”

While discussions have begun between the US and South Korea, to get the latter to pay more for the cost of maintaining US troops in the region to guard against any threat from North Korea.

In early August, North Korea again expressed anger at USSouth Korean military drills by launching new tactical guided missiles. They were fired from South Hwanghae province across the peninsula, travelled about 450 kilometres and landed in the sea to the east, KCNA said.

South Korea’s military had described those missiles as similar to the Russian-made Iskander, a solid-fuel, the nuclear-capable missile that is highly manoeuvrable and travels on low trajectories, improving its chances of evading missile defence systems.

This is North’s fourth provocation in less than two weeks, came amid stalled denuclearisation talks with Washington, althoughWashington and Seoul played down the tests.

US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he is tacitly giving North Korea permission to continue testing.“I say it again, there have been no nuclear tests.The missile tests have all been short-ranged — no ballistic missile test. No longrange missiles,” he stressed.

The United States has responded to this kind of warnings before when North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday.

This and the two similar missile tests last week, raised the stakes for US and South Korean diplomats hoping to restart talks on North Korean denuclearisation.

On Wednesday, a senior US defence official said it does not plan to make changes to a military drill with South Korea, despite a series of North Korean missile launches intended to pressure Seoul andWashington to stop joint exercises.

The US and South Korean militaries joint exercise which started on 11 August, known as Dong Maeng, which is believed to be a slimmed-down version of an annual drill once known as Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise, which included thousands of US troops. It is unclear how many US troops were involved this year, but the official noted that the exercise, as in the past, would have a large computersimulated portion.

North Korea had earlier said that it will wait to see if this August exercises actually take place to decide on the fate of its diplomacy with the United States and also whether to continue its unilateral suspension of nuclear and long-range missile tests,which leader Kim Jong Un announced last year amid a diplomatic outreach to Washington.

Earlier in August, Trump tweeted “It was a long letter, much of it complaining about the ridiculous and expensive exercises. It was also a small apology for testing the shortrange missiles, and that this testing would stop when the exercises end.”

Future of US-Korean alliance would carry a huge bill for Seoul

Since the end of the Korean conflict, when Washington fought alongside Seoul against North Korea, the US has had troops stationed in South Korea. The US has about 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea and another 50,000 in Japan.

Each year, the two countries conduct military drills, often also called war games. Seoul and Washington say the drills are defensive but Pyongyang sees them as a preparation for war.

Following the 2018 summit in Singapore where North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump agreed on a vague denuclearisation statement, the US president also said he’d cancel the war games.

It is no doubt that the North Korean nuclear program represents a clear threat to both North Korea and its greatest ally, since the second world war, the United States.

And besides their shared disapproval for the North, US is South Korea’s second most important trading partner after China.

However,Trump has repeatedly said Seoul should bear more of the burden of keeping some 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea, where the United States has had a military presence since the 1950-53 Korean War.And US national security adviser John Bolton discussed the cost-sharing issue during his visit to Seoul in July, according to the Blue House.

South Korean and US officials9 signed an agreement in February, under which Seoul would raise its contribution to just under 1.04 trillion won ($927m), an increase of about $70.3m. The interim agreement was due to expire in a year.

Finally, nuclear activity appears to be continuing, however, and satellite images of North Korea’s main nuclear site last month showed movement, suggesting the country could be reprocessing radioactive material into bomb fuel.