2023-10-22 17:57:00
In this photo provided by South Korea’s Defense Ministry, the U.S. aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan and the U.S. nuclear-powered submarine Annapolis take part in a joint anti-submarine military exercise between South Korea, the United States and Japan on Sept. 30, 2022. in waters off the eastern coast of South Korea. (South Korea’s Defense Ministry via AP, file)
The militaries of South Korea, the United States and Japan held their first trilateral air exercise on Sunday in response to evolving nuclear threats from North Korea, South Korea’s air force said.
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The training conducted near the Korean Peninsula was to implement the three countries’ earlier agreement to increase defense cooperation and boost their joint response capabilities once morest North Korean threats, the air force said in a statement.
A U.S. nuclear-capable B-52 bomber and fighter jets from South Korea and Japan participated in the exercise, according to the statement.
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In addition to this bomber, which landed this past week on South Korean soil, American F-16 fighters, South Korean F-15s and Japanese F-2s also took part.
North Korea sharply criticized the Camp David agreement and accused the leaders of the United States, South Korea and Japan of plotting nuclear war provocations on the Korean Peninsula. (South Korean Ministry of Defense via AP)
South Korea and Japan are key U.S. allies in Asia, together hosting regarding 80,000 U.S. troops.
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“This exercise was designed to follow up on the defense agreements reached at the Camp David summit in August and to expand the response capabilities of the three countries in the face of growing nuclear and missile threats from North Korea,” the text explains. .
The three countries have occasionally conducted trilateral maritime exercises, such as anti-submarine or anti-missile defense exercises, but Sunday’s training marked the first time they held a trilateral air exercise.
In South Korea, expanding military exercises with Japan is a sensitive issue because many still harbor strong resentment once morest Japan’s brutal colonial rule from 1910 to 1945 over the Korean Peninsula. But the advance of the North’s nuclear program has pushed South Korea’s conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol to move beyond historical disputes with Japan and strengthen trilateral security cooperation with the United States and Japan.
South Korea and Japan are key U.S. allies in Asia, together hosting regarding 80,000 U.S. troops. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake
In August, Yoon, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met at Camp David in their countries’ first independent trilateral summit and agreed to strengthen their defense cooperation to confront North Korea’s nuclear threats. The three leaders decided to hold annual trilateral exercises and launch real-time missile warning data sharing over North Korea by the end of the year.
Sunday’s exercise might provoke a furious response from North Korea, which has long bristled at U.S. training exercises with South Korea, calling them an invasion rehearsal and responding with missile tests. North Korea sharply criticized the Camp David agreement and accused the leaders of the United States, South Korea and Japan of plotting nuclear war provocations on the Korean Peninsula. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called Yoon, Biden and Kishida “the gang bosses” of the three countries.
Concerns regarding North Korea’s nuclear program have deepened following it enacted a law last year authorizing the preventive use of nuclear weapons and has since openly threatened to use them in potential conflicts with the United States and South Korea.
(with information from AP)
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