South Korea and the United States have shortened the duration of their joint military drills and scaled back field training exercises after US President Donald Trump ordered a \u201csubstantial reduction\u201d in the annual war games.<\/p>\n
The Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, which began on August 17, will be cut from 11 days to five and will now end on August 21, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
The adjustment to the duration of the drills was agreed at Washington\u2019s suggestion, the JCS said, adding that some combined \u200cfield manoeuvre training would also be scaled back.<\/p>\n
According to South Korean media, Seoul\u2019s Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back said the allies were moving to cancel the second phase of the drills, which had been expected to involve counterattack operations after an initial defensive phase.<\/p>\n
A US Department of Defense official told the Reuters news agency the department had substantially reduced the exercise and associated live-training events, with some cancelled or switched to simulations.<\/p>\n
The changes would preserve essential readiness and training aims, with no degradation to US training objectives, the official added.<\/p>\n
No \u2018advance\u2019 notice<\/p>\n
The changes follow Trump\u2019s order on Sunday to reduce the US role in the drills, citing his \u201cvery good relationship\u201d with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump also linked the decision to Seoul\u2019s refusal to join the US and Israel\u2019s war on Iran.<\/p>\n
South Korea\u2019s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said at a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday that neither South Korean nor US officials had been aware in advance of Trump\u2019s order to scale back joint military drills.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur government officials, of course, and the US government officials hadn\u2019t known about it in advance,\u201d Cho said, when asked by a lawmaker whether Seoul had been informed about Trump\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n
He added that Trump\u2019s message appeared aimed at pressuring Seoul \u2060to \u2060become involved in the \u200cwar on Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think President Trump\u2019s message includes pressure over several pending issues concerning the South Korean government, as well as a message to North Korea and an intention by the United States to break a stalemate in the Iran war,\u201d Cho said.<\/p>\n
Nuclear-armed North Korea has long voiced outrage at the US-South Korea exercises, considering them dress rehearsals for an invasion.<\/p>\n
It again denounced the \u2060drills on Wednesday, saying it would continue exercising its right to self-defence against what it called military threats from Washington and Seoul.<\/p>\n
Seoul\u2019s presidential office had said on Tuesday the drills did not reflect \u201cany intention to attack North Korea or escalate tensions on the Korean peninsula\u201d.<\/p>\n
Trump meanwhile said on Monday that Kim had responded to his outreach, without disclosing \u200cthe nature of the contact. He insisted that he is making the situation \u201cmuch safer\u201d through his ties with the North Korean leader.<\/p>\n
The two men met three times during Trump\u2019s first term in the White House, but have not held talks during his second.<\/p>\n
The Wall Street Journal reported separately that Trump has pushed aides to arrange an \u2060in-person meeting with Kim as soon as this autumn. Citing US officials, the Journal said Trump \u2060has discussed holding talks during a possible November trip to Asia for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the Chinese city of Shenzhen.<\/p>\n
\u2018Critical\u2019<\/p>\n
The US stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea to bolster the country\u2019s defences, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.<\/p>\n
But Trump\u2019s repeated criticism of time-honoured alliances has cast doubt on US commitments to security in East Asia and alarmed regional allies.<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi on Tuesday underlined the importance of security cooperation with the US and South Korea.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Japan faces the most severe and complicated security environment in the post-war era, the cooperation among Japan, the United States and South Korea is critical to the peace and stability of the region,\u201d Koizumi told journalists in Australia.<\/p>\n
Asked about Trump\u2019s comments, Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said his country was \u201cvery concerned about North Korea\u2019s nuclear programme as well as its missile programme, and we have consistently made that point\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think in the challenging world that we face \u2026 and there are many challenges, but North Korea is the author of quite a few of those challenges,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Korea and the United States have shortened the duration of their joint military drills and scaled back…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1010548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[13214,113,69,50,15243,103],"class_list":["post-1010547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-asia-pacific","tag-conflict","tag-donald-trump","tag-news","tag-south-korea","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117121667092416154","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1010547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1010548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1010547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1010547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1010547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}