SoKor, US end springtime drills to back diplomacy
SEOUL (AP) — South Korea and the US are eliminating their massive springtime military drills and replacing them with smaller exercises in what they call an effort to support diplomacy aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis.
The decision announced by both countries yesterday came after US President Donald Trump complained about the cost of joint drills even as his high-stakes second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Vietnam collapsed last week.
The drills’ cancellation is an olive branch to North Korea, which has viewed them as an invasion rehearsal. But it will likely raise worries about how the allies will maintain their readiness in the event that military tensions erupt again in the wake of the failed nuclear summit.
The Pentagon said in a release the US and South Korean defense chiefs decided to conclude the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle series of exercises. It said the allies agreed to maintain firm military readiness through newly designed command post exercises and revised field training programs.
Acting US Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan and South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo “made clear that the alliance decision to adapt our training program reflected our desire to reduce tension and support our diplomatic efforts to achieve complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in a final, fully verified manner,” the statement said.
Seoul’s Defense Ministry released a similar statement. Jeong expressed his regrets at the lack of agreement at the Trump-Kim summit but still hopes that Washington and Pyongyang would continue negotiations, the South Korean statement said.
The new training, dubbed “Dong Maeng,” which means “alliance” in English, starts today through March 12. It will focus on “strategic operational and tactical aspects of general military operations on the Korean peninsula,” South Korea’s military and the US-South Korean combined forces command said in a joint statement.
According to US officials, the new training will be done in smaller drills and it will involve smaller units, such as battalions and companies rather than massive formations involving thousands of troops, as they had in the past.