South Korea and the U.S. have kicked off their new scaled-down joint military exercise this Monday
For more we connect with our defense ministry correspondent Park Ji-won.
Mark.
The Dong Maeng exercise, meaning "alliance" in English, begins this Monday,... and will continue for seven weekdays, finishing next Tuesday.
The new exercise will be much scaled down from the two countries' previous Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises, which were held every spring.
Seoul's Defense Minister, Jeong Kyeong-doo, and acting U.S. Defense Secretary ( ) Patrick Shanahan decided to kickstart this new exercise after talking on the phone over the weekend.
The two defense chiefs said,... the decision to end the annual computer-simulated command-and-control exercise Key Resolve and field training Foal Eagle exercise,... and to come up with this much-reduced Dong Maeng exercise, was a move to back the push for denuclearization and long-lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Instead,.. the two countries emphasized that they will conduct more frequent, smaller-sized field training drills throughout the year,.. to compensate for the cancellation of the Foal Eagle exercise.
Amid ongoing negotiations between Pyeongyang and Washington,... South Korea and the U.S. have canceled or downsized a number of major joint exercises, including Ulchi Freedom Guardian and Vigilant Ace last year.
Meanwhile, Mark,.. just a few hours ago,... U.S. President Donald Trump said the reason he doesn't want military drills with South Korea is to save hundreds of millions of dollars that the U.S. could not get reimbursed.
This is from his tweet,... which further said,... it was his position long before he became President,... and also that reducing tensions with North Korea is a good thing as of now.
Observers say his message seems to defend his decision to put an end to Key Resolve and Foal Eagle after critics have claimed the U.S. gave up its joint military exercises,... while the denuclearization talks with Pyeongyang at the Hanoi summit didn't bear any specific results.
Well, that's all I have for now. Mark.
