SEOUL, Aug 5, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Seoul and Washington were to begin annual
joint military exercises on Monday, defying warnings from Pyongyang that the
war games will jeopardise nuclear negotiations between the US and North
Korea.
The drills come after Pyongyang tested a series of short-range projectiles
in recent days, calling one of them a “solemn warning” to Seoul against
pursuing the mainly computer-simulated drills with Washington.
“Our joint exercise to verify (Seoul’s) capabilities for its envisioned
retaking of wartime operational control is being prepared,” a ministry
official told reporters.
Under the US-South Korea security treaty an American general will take
command of their combined forces in the event of war, but Seoul has long
sought to reverse the position.
Analysts say the military activities by both sides could delay talks on the
North’s weapons programmes — which have seen it subject to multiple sets of
UN Security Council sanctions — until later this year.
After a year of mutual threats and mounting tensions US President Donald
Trump and the North’s leader Kim Jong Un held a historic meeting in Singapore
last year, when Kim signed a vague pledge to work towards “denuclearisation
of the Korean peninsula”.
A second summit in Hanoi in February broke up amid disagreement on
sanctions relief and what the North might be willing to give up in return.
Trump and Kim agreed to resume nuclear talks during their impromptu June
meeting in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula, but that
working-level dialogue has yet to begin.
The nuclear-armed North — which attacked its neighbour in 1950, triggering
the Korean War — has always been infuriated by military exercises between
the US and the South, decrying them as rehearsals for invasion.
– Thousands of US troops –
After the Singapore summit, Trump made a shock announcement halting joint
drills, adopting Pyongyang’s own description of them as “provocative” at an
extraordinary, freewheeling press conference.
War games known as Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) and scheduled for August
last year were subsequently suspended.
And the allies’ biggest annual drills, Foal Eagle and Key Resolve, which
took place every spring and involved tens of thousands of troops, were
replaced with a shorter “Dong Maeng” or “Alliance” exercise in March.
The August drills were scaled down earlier this year, Yonhap news agency
reported, and have not been named, with an official from Seoul’s Joint Chiefs
of Staff (JCS) telling AFP that they “cannot comment any further” on their
designation.
South Korean media have dubbed the command post exercise “19-2 Dong Maeng”,
indicating the second Dong Maeng exercise of 2019. Pyongyang warned last week
that further nuclear talks could be derailed if Seoul and Washington push
ahead with the manoeuvres.
And on Friday North Korea carried out its third weapons test in the space
of eight days, firing what it called a new “large calibre multiple launch
guided rocket system”.
Seoul’s presidential office said it was highly likely to be “a new type of
short-range ballistic missile”.
Trump brushed off the North’s tests, saying Kim will not want to
“disappoint” him because he has “far too much to lose”.
“He will do the right thing because he is far too smart not to, and he does
not want to disappoint his friend, President Trump!” the US president said.
There are 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea to protect it against
its neighbour, many of them based south of Seoul at Camp Humphreys in
Pyeongtaek — Washington’s biggest overseas military facility.