South Korea and the U.S. have agreed to conduct joint military exercises beginning next month in the latest effort to deter North Korea’s Kim Jong Un from launching nuclear missiles, military officials said Wednesday.
U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis and his Seoul counterpart Han Min Koo agreed while meeting in Seoul last week to the military exercises. The annual event, which will take place in central South Korea, consists of field-training exercises, including air, land and sea elements. It will also include missile defense drills.
“Working-level officials between the two nations are close to reaching a consensus on expanding the scale of the drills compared to those of last year,” a military official said on condition of anonymity. “The two sides are also exchanging opinions on whether Washington will send its strategic weapons for the drills.”
The military exercises were approved in November 2015 and the drills started in 2016, according to local reports. The events are a “routine and defense-oriented exercise designed to enhance readiness, protect the region and maintain stability on the Korean Peninsula,” Maj. Chris Ophardt, U.S. Army Secretary Eric Fanning’s public affairs officer, said in an email last year, according to the Guardian.
The details of the upcoming exercise were still evolving, but the U.S is in “talks regarding the deployment of U.S. strategic assets to the peninsula,” an unidentified official said, referring to the possible deployment of the B-1B strategic bomber from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the B-2 stealth bomber from the U.S. mainland, the B-52 long-range nuclear bomber and F-22 stealth fighters maintained by U.S. Forces Korea.
There were 310,000 troops from South Korea and 17,000 from the U.S. involved in the exercises in 2016, the largest ever. There might be a slight change in next month’s exercises, with officials considering increasing the number of American troops. However, they would maintain a similar number of South Korean troops, according to Korea Times.
North Korea, which has threatened to bomb Washington and Seoul, hasn’t taken kindly to these types of drills in the past. The North Korean army and people “will take military counteraction for preemptive attack so that they may deal merciless deadly blows at the enemies,” the North’s powerful National Defense Commission said in a statement during drills in March 2016.
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