SEOUL, South Korea (AP) 鈥� The South Korean and U.S. militaries have agreed to shorten their drills at the U.S.’s request, South Korean officials said Wednesday, days after to the exercises.
The allies鈥� summertime began Monday morning for an 11-day run, just after Trump ordered his Pentagon chief to 鈥渟ubstantially reduce鈥� them. Trump cited what he said was a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea鈥檚 refusal to join the U.S.
South Korea鈥檚 military said in a statement the ongoing drills with the U.S. would end Friday, not Aug. 27 as initially planned. It said the allies also agreed to downsize some joint field training exercises.
Many experts say threatens to hurt combined U.S.-South Korean readiness and eventually weaken their
Ulchi Freedom Shield is largely a computer-simulated command post exercise meant to hone the allies鈥� ability to deal with potential regional security threats like North Korean aggression. The two countries usually hold field training exercises during the command post exercise period.
The drills and are a central pillar of the U.S. -South Korea alliance, which dates to the 1950-53 Korean War. But it鈥檚 also a long-running source of tensions with North Korea, which has denounced the exercises as a rehearsal for war and responded with provocative missile tests.
North Korea hasn’t responded to Trump’s overture. But earlier Wednesday, its state news agency, KCNA, published commentary slamming the U.S.-South Korean military drills as 鈥渇rantic鈥� and 鈥渆xtremely dangerous鈥� and vowing to completely frustrate its rivals鈥� hostilities.
Experts said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, now emboldened by his advancing nuclear program and expanding military cooperation, won’t likely embrace Trump’s overture anytime soon unless he’s promised bigger concessions. In response to Trump’s previous outreach, Kim suggested last year that he can return to talks only after the U.S. drops its demand of a North Korean denuclearization as a precondition for diplomacy.
Trump and Kim met three times from 2018-2019 but their high-stakes diplomacy eventually fell apart over wrangling over a North Korean demand for extensive sanctions relief in return for limited denuclearization steps.
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