South Korea and the United States have launched their largest joint military drills in years, officials said, as the allies seek to tighten readiness over North Korea’s potential weapons tests.
The annual summertime exercises in Korea, renamed Ulchi Freedom Shield, began on Monday and are scheduled to end on September 1.
They come after South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May, promised to “normalise” the combined exercises and boost deterrence against North Korea.
South Korea separately launched the four-day Ulchi civil defence drills on Monday, designed to boost government readiness, for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic emerged.
The military and civil exercises are aimed at improving the country’s preparedness to match the changing patterns of war, with evolving cyber threats against key facilities such as chip factories and supply chains, Yoon said.
The drills were the largest since 2017, after being scaled back during COVID-19 and prior to that, to create space for diplomacy with North Korea.
Credit: Aljazeera.com
