South\u00a0Korean President\u00a0Lee\u00a0Jae Myung called on Tuesday for\u00a0stronger\u00a0independent\u00a0defence\u00a0capabilities, while saying annual\u00a0civil-defence\u00a0exercises coinciding with joint U.S.-South\u00a0Korea\u00a0military\u00a0drills\u00a0were defensive and\u00a0not\u00a0intended to threaten\u00a0North\u00a0Korea.<\/p>\n
The remarks came after U.S. President Donald Trump instructed the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the joint military exercises with\u00a0South\u00a0Korea, and said\u00a0North\u00a0Korean leader Kim Jong Un had\u00a0responded\u00a0to his outreach.<\/p>\n
Lee\u00a0said Seoul should proceed without disruption with the planned transfer of wartime operational control from the United States during his term, in line with the government’s existing plan.<\/p>\n
“A strong alliance makes the foundation of security\u00a0stronger, and strengthening our own capabilities increases our value and necessity as an ally,”\u00a0Lee\u00a0said in a cabinet meeting, describing the U.S.-South\u00a0Korea\u00a0alliance and independent\u00a0defence\u00a0as mutually reinforcing.<\/p>\n
He also called for faster progress on\u00a0South\u00a0Korea’s\u00a0nuclear-powered submarine programme and for developing officers capable of integrated operations for future conflicts, as distinctions between battlefields become less clear.<\/p>\n
At a National Security Council meeting on Tuesday,\u00a0Lee\u00a0said\u00a0the civil-defence\u00a0exercises held alongside major U.S.-South\u00a0Korea\u00a0military\u00a0drills\u00a0were defensive in character,\u00a0aimed\u00a0at safeguarding\u00a0South\u00a0Koreans’ lives and safety.<\/p>\n
South\u00a0Korea\u00a0had no intention of using the exercises to attack\u00a0North\u00a0Korea\u00a0or raise tensions on the\u00a0Korean Peninsula,\u00a0Lee\u00a0said, adding that their purpose was to protect citizens’ daily lives rather than\u00a0target\u00a0any particular party as an enemy, according to a statement by the presidential Blue House.<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South\u00a0Korean President\u00a0Lee\u00a0Jae Myung called on Tuesday for\u00a0stronger\u00a0independent\u00a0defence\u00a0capabilities, while saying annual\u00a0civil-defence\u00a0exercises coinciding with joint U.S.-South\u00a0Korea\u00a0military\u00a0drills\u00a0were defensive and\u00a0not\u00a0intended to threaten\u00a0North\u00a0Korea.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1523,134,2329,2333,2328,2336,2331,2330,2332,31,2334,146,2335,33,1583,2327,2326,207],"class_list":["post-124192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-korea","tag-breaking-news","tag-china","tag-english-daily","tag-finance","tag-free-newspaper","tag-headlines","tag-hong-kong-media","tag-hong-kong-news","tag-hong-kong-news-media","tag-korea","tag-latest-news","tag-lee-jae-myung","tag-sing-tao","tag-south-korea","tag-sports","tag-standard","tag-the-standard","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}