The United States and South Korea have begun their largest combined military training in years as they strengthen their defense posture against a growing North Korean nuclear threat.
The drills could draw ire from Pyongyang, which has pushed its weapons testing activity to a record pace this year while repeatedly threatening clashes with Seoul and Washington in a protracted diplomatic standoff.
The Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises will continue until September 1 in South Korea and will include field exercises involving aircraft, warships, tanks and potentially tens of thousands of troops.
But North Korea describes the drills as rehearsals for an invasion.
Cho Joong-hoon, spokesman for South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said the South did not immediately detect any unusual activity or signs from the North.
The United States and South Korea have canceled some of their regular exercises and reduced others to computer simulations in recent years to create space for diplomacy with North Korea – and because of concerns over the COVID-19.
The drills came after North Korea last week rejected South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s offer to trade denuclearization measures and economic benefits.
Kim Yo Jong – the increasingly powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un – called Mr Yoon’s proposal stupid and stressed that the North had no intention of bartering an arsenal his brother apparently considers as its best guarantee of survival.
She harshly criticized Mr. Yoon for continuing military exercises with the United States and also for Seoul’s failure to stop South Korean civilian activists from flying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets and other “rubbish.” dirty” across the border in a balloon.
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She also ridiculed the North’s US-South Korean missile activity monitoring capabilities, insisting that Seoul had misidentified the launch location for the North’s latest missile tests last Wednesday, hours before Mr. Yoon at a press conference urges Pyongyang to return to diplomacy.
Earlier this month, Ms Kim warned of ‘deadly’ retaliation against South Korea over a recent North Korean outbreak of COVID-19, which Pyongyang says was caused by leaflets and protesters. Other Objects Thrown by Southern Activists.
There are fears the threat portends a provocation that could include a nuclear or missile test or even border skirmishes, and that the North could try to escalate tensions around Allied drills.
