Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
South Korea and the United States have agreed to cut short their joint military drills and scale down some field exercises at Washington’s request, South Korean officials said on Wednesday. The move came days after US President Donald Trump ordered cuts to the exercises.
The summertime Ulchi Freedom Shield drills began on Monday and were originally due to run for 11 days. Trump said he wanted the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the exercises, citing what he described as a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea’s refusal to join the US war against Iran.
advertisement
South Korea’s military said the ongoing drills with the US would now end on Friday instead of August 27, as initially planned. It also said the two sides had agreed to reduce some joint field training exercises.
Many experts say Trump’s decision could hurt combined US-South Korean readiness and eventually weaken their decades-old alliance. Ulchi Freedom Shield is largely a computer-simulated command post exercise meant to improve the allies’ ability to respond to possible regional security threats such as North Korean aggression. The two countries usually hold field training exercises during the same period.
The drills, along with a similar exercise held in spring, are a central part of the US-South Korea alliance, which goes back to the 1950-53 Korean War. They have also long been a source of tension with North Korea, which has described the exercises as a rehearsal for war and has responded in the past with provocative missile tests.
North Korea has not responded to Trump’s overture. But earlier on Wednesday, its state news agency KCNA carried commentary that criticised the US-South Korean drills as “frantic” and “extremely dangerous” and said it would completely frustrate what it called its rivals’ hostilities.
Experts said Kim Jong Un, strengthened by North Korea’s advancing nuclear programme and expanding military cooperation, is unlikely to accept Trump’s overture any time soon unless he is offered bigger concessions. In response to Trump’s earlier outreach, Kim said last year that he could return to talks only if the US dropped its demand that North Korea agree to denuclearisation before diplomacy began.
Trump and Kim met three times between 2018 and 2019, but their diplomacy later collapsed over disagreements on North Korea’s demand for wide sanctions relief in exchange for limited denuclearisation steps. The latest decision on the drills marks another shift in an exercise that has long been a key part of the US-South Korea alliance and a recurring source of friction with Pyongyang.
With PTI Inputs
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
