South Korea and US begin military exercises without field training

Despite threats from North Korea, the armed forces of the United States and South Korea began their annual summer exercises on Monday, South Korean broadcasters and the Yonhap news agency reported.

South Korea’s military had announced on Sunday, however, that the nine-day commando exercise Combined Command Post Training would be conducted on a reduced scale, without field training.

The coronavirus pandemic and “efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula,” which means the goal of North Korea’s nuclear disarmament, had played a role in the decision.

Pyongyang regularly accuses the US of using its manoeuvres with South Korea to prepare for an attack. Washington and Seoul deny this.

Most recently, the vice chairperson of the central committee of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, Kim Yong Chol, threatened in a statement that South Korea would face a “serious security crisis” because of its military exercises with the US.

Earlier, North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un’s influential sister, Kim Yo Jong, threatened that North Korea would build up its capabilities for powerful pre-emptive strikes.

According to South Korea, the latest military exercise will focus on computer simulations. Only absolutely necessary personnel will take part, it said.

In past years, the US and South Korea had already reduced the manoeuvres, also for diplomatic reasons.

Negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear programme have not progressed since Kim Jong Un’s failed summit with then US president Donald Trump in Vietnam in February 2019.

The current US administration under President Joe Biden had offered new talks without conditions, but North Korea has rejected this option.