South Korea, Japan and the United States conducted a long-planned joint naval exercise involving a U.S. aircraft carrier to ensure preparedness against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, the Seoul Navy announced Friday.
North Korea has accelerated its weapons development, testing a solid-fuel hypersonic missile last week, and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un said Wednesday that the unstable geopolitical situation meant that war was now more important than ever. He said now is the time to prepare for the
“Participating units conducted anti-submarine warfare training to improve their response to North Korea’s underwater threats, including submarines and submarine-launched ballistic missiles,” the South Korean Navy said in a statement.
The two-day exercise, which began Thursday in international waters between South Korea and Japan, included the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, destroyers USS Howard, USS Russell and Daniel Inouye, as well as warships from neighboring Asian nations.
According to the South Korean Navy, the exercise is aimed at strengthening joint capabilities to respond to the North Korean threat and is based on a multi-year joint training plan developed after last year’s trilateral summit.
The navies of the three countries also conducted maritime interdiction exercises to prevent North Korea from illegally transporting weapons of mass destruction, and search-and-rescue exercises to help ships in distress.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry added that South Korean and U.S. defense officials held annual defense talks in Washington on Thursday and reaffirmed plans for a tabletop exercise that simulates North Korea’s use of nuclear weapons in upcoming summer exercises.
At the Camp David summit last August, the leaders of the three countries conducted annual multidisciplinary exercises, shared real-time information on North Korean missile launches, and launched a crisis communications hotline. Agreed.
