The top US commander on the Korean Peninsula said regular exercises between the allies are “absolutely” necessary to maintain peace and impose pressure on North Korea, after officials in Seoul floated adjusting the drills to facilitate dialogue with the nuclear-armed neighbor.
“Russian-DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] collaboration is real. It is not a quid-pro-quo relationship. It is real,” General Xavier Brunson, the commander of US forces in South Korea, said on Thursday, referring to North Korea by its official name.
“Whenever someone talks about, I don’t care who it is, talks about exercising less or exercising differently, and they need to understand that there are two times in a year where we absolutely need some support,” Brunson said, referring to the allies’ regular drills in the spring and summer that involve about 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea.
Photo: Bloomberg
The general’s remarks appeared to take a different stance to South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who has said he is open to reviewing Seoul’s joint military drills with the US if it would help Washington resume talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Lee’s national security adviser later said Seoul is not considering drills adjustment as an option right now, but the country’s point man on North Korea, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young this week said they should be able to discuss the issue to start negotiations with Pyongyang.
When US President Donald Trump pursued talks with Kim during his first term, Washington paused some of the drills which North Korea has long bristled at. Trump and Kim met three times, but those talks failed to persuade the North Korean leader to abandon his nuclear ambitions.
“The only way we can get about solving that is pressure, is provided by our ability to conduct our activities and make the right investments in time now so that we provide the deterrent effect that’s born of this alliance,” Brunson said, calling peace on the peninsula among the “most fragile.”
In an episode highlighting that fragility, South Korea and Japan on Tuesday scrambled jets as Russian and Chinese warplanes flew around their territory.
Just hours after the joint flight near the peninsula, North Korea fired multiple rockets off its western coast, South Korea’s military said.
In Washington, the US on Thursday held a nuclear consultative group meeting with South Korea and reaffirmed its commitment to provide extended deterrence to the Asian ally “utilizing the full range of US defense capabilities, including nuclear.”
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