SEOUL: South Korea and the United States on Saturday launched a massive naval exercise in the tense Yellow Sea, ahead of the 62nd anniversary Monday of the outbreak of the Korean War, a spokesman said.
The three-day drill will involve 10 South Korean warships plus the USS George Washington aircraft carrier, 8,000 personnel and hundreds of combat aircraft, the defence ministry said. The joint naval drill, which comes amid high tensions on the peninsula, is conducted every year, alternatively in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) and the Yellow Sea.
“The naval exercise started as scheduled today,” the defence ministry spokesman said. On Friday, South Korean and US troops held their biggest single-day joint live-fire exercise to test responses to any North Korean attack. The drill at Pocheon near the North Korean border involved 2,000 troops along with jet fighters, tanks, Apache attack helicopters, A-10 “tank-killer” aircraft, missiles and rocket launchers, the defence ministry said. On Thursday and Friday, the US, South Korea and Japan carried out a separate drill off the southern South Korean island of Jeju, involving destroyers, supply ships and helicopters.
Source :AFP
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