South Korea, the US and Japan would go ahead with a trilateral military drill next month in response to North Korean nuclear threats, officials in Seoul said yesterday, a day after North Korea vowed to retaliate against what it called US hostilities.
The development further dims prospects for an early resumption of diplomacy between North Korea and the US, despite US President Donald Trump’s recent decision to scale back a major bilateral military drill with South Korea in an apparent goodwill gesture toward Pyongyang.
The Freedom Edge exercise would start on Sept. 7 for a five-day run in the waters off South Korea’s southern Jeju Island, South Korea’s military said in a statement.
Photo: Reuters Photo
The exercise is defensive in nature, and meant to respond to North Korean nuclear and missile threats as well as promote regional peace and stability, it said.
North Korea has previously slammed the trilateral drill as a “reckless show of strength” that showed its adversaries’ confrontational stance against it.
The drill contained a US intention to lay siege to China and exert pressure on Russia, it has said.
Launched in 2024, the Freedom Edge drill is designed to increase the sophistication of previous exercises with simultaneous air and naval drills geared toward improving joint ballistic missile defense, anti-submarine warfare, surveillance and other capabilities.
Last week, the US and South Korean militaries ended their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise six days earlier than originally planned, after Trump said he had ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the drill.
On Thursday, North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the US of engaging in “a series of hostile moves” targeting it, including a possible sale of air-to-air missiles to South Korea, vowing that it would “make a serious, immediate and powerful response.”
Earlier this week, South Korea’s Marine Corps said that a biennial joint amphibious landing drill with the US would likely not take place next month as previously scheduled.
The US Marine Corps in June informed it of a constraint in the operational capability of its forces during the drill’s planned period due to the situation in the Middle East, it said.
The US Marine Corps said its “participation level” in the Ssangyong drill was determined in coordination with South Korea and was unrelated to decisions regarding other exercises, adding that it “remains firmly committed to its longstanding partnership” with South Korea.
China deployed a record number of coast guard, scientific research and other ships near Taiwan’s waters last month, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said, as Beijing dials up pressure on Taipei. The coast guard warned of an increasingly severe situation, as analysts say the increased activity is part of China’s bid to map the region for submarine warfare. The number of Chinese ships detected around Taiwan proper soared to a record 244 last month — an average of nearly eight every day, official data showed. That compares with 55 ships detected in June and 30 in May, and 58 in July last year. In
A fire and subsequent explosion in a residential area in Tainan early yesterday injured 15 people and damaged 68 homes, the Tainan City Fire Bureau said. The bureau said it received a report at 1:12am yesterday that a pile of waste in a vacant lot in Annan District’s (安南) Haidian Road had caught fire and exploded, adding that it dispatched 144 firefighters and 53 firetrucks to battle the blaze and evacuate nearby residents. It took more than four hours to extinguish the fire, it said. The incident damaged 11 privately owned vehicles, as well as eight fire engines, one ambulance and two disaster
DELUGE: The Tainan City Government requested five mobile water pumps from the central government to supplement the 511 pumps it had already prepared Torrential rain caused by the combined effects of southwesterly winds and a low-pressure belt battered southern Taiwan yesterday, causing widespread flooding across Tainan, Kaohsiung and Pingtung County. More than 2,300 people were evacuated as authorities warned of continued heavy rain through tomorrow. Tainan, Kaohsiung and Pingtung County yesterday announced that work and classes would remain suspended today for the second consecutive day amid heavy rain and flooding. Chiayi, Hualien and Taitung counties later last night also announced that work and classes would be canceled today. The Kaohsiung City Government said it expected cumulative rainfall over the five-day period of the low-pressure system to
A US Navy P-8A Poseidon aircraft transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace on Friday, in a move the US 7th Fleet said “demonstrates the US’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.” The Chinese military tracked and monitored the patrol and reconnaissance aircraft throughout the transit, the state-backed Global Times newspaper reported, citing a military source, saying the “situation was under control.” US military ships or aircraft pass through or above the waterway that separates Taiwan from China every few months. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is expected to visit the US next month to meet US President Donald Trump as Washington
RSS