2024-01-04 07:30:00
Seoul, Jan 4 (EFE).- The armies of South Korea and the United States today carried out maneuvers with live fire near the border with North Korea, according to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in a statement. , in what represents a new action that highlights the military escalation on the Korean peninsula.
The maneuvers involve infantry units and have been held since December 29 in the town of Pocheon, 45 kilometers northeast of Seoul.
The exercise, which lasts until January 5, seeks to improve the allies’ interoperable capabilities, according to the JCS statement.
110 different South Korean and American weapons systems participated in the exercise, including K1A2 tanks, armored vehicles such as the K-600, A-10 fighter jets or artillery systems.
Just today, the North Korean media harshly criticized these maneuvers, with the state agency KCNA describing these exercises in Pocheon as “self-destructive” actions and also some live-fire maneuvers carried out on Wednesday by the South Korean navy.
In turn, JCS spokesperson Lee Sung-jun stated today at a press conference that the North Korean army has been carrying out its traditional winter maneuvers since before the end of the year.
These North Korean exercises typically last until spring and typically involve artillery drills.
Coinciding with the end of the year, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, said that there is no longer any possibility of reconciliation or reunification with the South and that his regime will continue to strengthen its atomic and missile program, while the southern president, Yoon Suk -yeol, stressed in his New Year’s speech that Seoul and Washington will modernize their deterrence strategy this year, which now includes the nuclear option.
After the failure of denuclearization negotiations with Washington in 2019, Pyongyang approved a weapons modernization plan – which includes deploying military satellites and has involved carrying out countless missile tests – in addition to rejecting the restart of dialogue and seeking a greater rapprochement. with Beijing and Moscow.
Meanwhile, Seoul and Washington have reinforced military cooperation with Tokyo and strengthened their deterrence mechanism by multiplying their joint maneuvers and increasingly deploying US strategic assets on the peninsula.
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