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| South Korea, the United States and Japan conduct a trilateral missile defense exercise in the international waters of the East Sea, Monday. Courtesy of Republic of Korea Navy |
By Lee Hyo-jin
South Korea, the United States and Japan staged a trilateral missile defense exercise, Monday, in a major demonstration of strengthened security cooperation against North Korea's evolving nuclear and missile threats.
The navies of South Korea and the U.S., as well as Japan's maritime self-defense forces, conducted the combined exercise in international waters between the South and Japan, mobilizing three Aegis-equipped destroyers ― South Korea's Yulgok Yi I, USS Benfold of the U.S. and Japan's JS Atago ― according to the South Korean Navy.
After setting a virtual target during a hypothetical scenario of a North Korean ballistic missile launch, the drill focused on detecting and tracking the target as well as information sharing between the three warships.
"This is an opportunity for our navy to solidify its response capacity over ballistic missiles while strengthening Korea-U.S.-Japan security cooperation against North Korea's escalating nuclear and missile threats," Navy Capt. Kim Ki-Yeong, the commander of the destroyer, said in a statement.
Monday's naval exercise, which followed a trilateral missile defense drill on Feb. 22, signaled the three nations' combined efforts in deterring North Korea's increasing provocations.
During their senior-level defense dialogue, called the Defense Trilateral Talks, last week, the three countries agreed to hold missile defense and anti-submarine exercises regularly to counter the North's threats.
Pyongyang has fired a series of ballistic missiles in recent months, highlighting a shared security challenge between Seoul, Washington and Japan. On April 13, the totalitarian regime fired what appeared to be a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into the East Sea, prompting Japan to issue an evacuation order for residents on the northern island of Hokkaido.
Some experts anticipate that the North may further escalate tensions by firing an ICBM at a normal trajectory into the Pacific Ocean to display its nuclear weapon's capability of reaching the U.S. mainland.
On the same day, the South Korean and U.S. air forces launched large-scale combined drills called Korea Flying Training (KFT) at Gwangju Air Base in the southeastern city of Gwangju.
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| A U.S. F-16 fighter jet participates in a joint air drill with the South Korean Air Force at Gwangju Air Base, Monday. Yonhap |
The 12-day exercise will feature about 110 aircraft and 1,400 troops, according to South Korea's Air Force. Over 60 South Korean warplanes including F-35A, F-15K and KF-16, will fly alongside 40 U.S. aircraft such as the F-16 fighters and A-10 attack jets.
Earlier in the day, Seoul and Tokyo held a security dialogue between senior diplomats and defense officials ― for the first time in five years ― amid a thaw in bilateral relations following the March 16 summit.
According to South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense, Seo Min-jung, director general head for Asia Pacific affairs at the foreign ministry and Woo Kyung-suk, deputy director general for international policy at the defense ministry met with their counterparts Takehiro Funakoshi, director-general of Asian and Oceanian affairs at Japan's foreign ministry, and Atsushi Ando, deputy director-general of the Defense Policy Bureau at the defense ministry.
During the meeting held in Seoul, the two sides vowed future-oriented security cooperation to secure peace and stability in the Northeast region and on the Korean peninsula.
After the so-called two-plus-two meeting was launched in 1998, there had been 11 such dialogues over the span of two decades. But the meetings came to a halt after 2018 as bilateral ties soured due to an array of historical disputes stemming from Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
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