The armies of South Korea and the United States carried out live fire maneuvers this Thursday (4) near the border with North Korea, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) reported, in a new action amid to the military escalation on the Korean peninsula.
The maneuvers involve infantry units and have been carried out since December 29 in the city of Pocheon, 45 kilometers northeast of Seoul. The exercise, which runs until this Friday (5), aims to improve the interoperability capabilities of allies, according to the JCS statement.
The activity involves 110 different weapons systems from South Korea and the US, including K1A2 tanks, armored vehicles such as the K-600, A-10 fighter jets and artillery systems.
Earlier, the North Korean press harshly criticized the exercises, describing the maneuvers in Pocheon as “self-destructive”, as well as a live fire activity carried out by the South Korean Navy on Wednesday (3).
JCS spokesman Lee Sung-jun told a news conference that North Korea's military has been holding its traditional winter exercises since before the end of the year. These Pyongyang exercises typically last until spring and often involve artillery tests.
Coinciding with the end of the year, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un stated that there is no longer any possibility of reconciliation or reunification with South Korea and that his regime will continue to strengthen its atomic and missile program, while the president South Korean Yoon Suk-yeol emphasized in his New Year's speech that Seoul and Washington will modernize their deterrence strategy this year, which now includes the nuclear option.
After the failure of denuclearization talks with Washington in 2019, Pyongyang approved a weapons modernization plan – which includes the deployment of military satellites and involved numerous missile tests – as well as refusing to restart dialogue and seek closer ties with Beijing and Moscow.
Meanwhile, Seoul and Washington have reinforced military cooperation with Tokyo and strengthened their deterrence mechanism, multiplying their joint maneuvers and deploying more and more US strategic assets on the peninsula.
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