This handout photo taken on Nov 12, 2017 and provided by the ROK Defense Ministry in Seoul shows USS Nimitz (3rd left), USS Ronald Reagan (2nd left) and USS Theodore Roosevelt (left) conducting operations with ROK's destroyer "King Sejong" (front) during a joint naval drill in the waters east of ROK. (ROK DEFENSE MINISTRY / AFP)
SEOUL – The naval forces of the Republic of Korea, the United States and Japan will stage their major trilateral anti-submarine exercises for the first time in five years on Friday.
The drills will be held in international waters off the Korean peninsula's east coast, just a day after the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea fired two ballistic missiles toward its east coast and US Vice-President Kamala Harris visited Seoul and the heavily fortified border between the two Koreas.
The one-day drills are a flagship maritime training that has not been conducted since 2017 because the former progressive ROK government sought to improve inter-Korean relations and facilitate denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington, which have stalled since 2019
"The exercises are designed to improve their capability to respond to increasing North Korean submarine threats, including its submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) at a time when it consistently poses nuclear and missile threats with a series of ballistic missile tests," the ROK navy said in a statement. The DPRK is also referred to as North Korea.
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The one-day drills are a flagship maritime training that has not been conducted since 2017 because the former progressive ROK government sought to improve inter-Korean relations and facilitate denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington, which have stalled since 2019.
The exercises will bring together the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, the 9,800-ton guided missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville, the 6,900-ton Aegis-equipped destroyer USS Barry, ROK's 4,400-ton destroyer Munmu the Great and Japan's 5,100-ton tanker Asahi, among other warships, the ROK navy said.
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