The beginning of the first tripartite exercise between America, Japan and South Korea

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported that the Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the South Korean Army announced that the three-day multi-part exercise called “Freedom Edge” began on Thursday on the island of Jeju, located in the south of the country.

The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement: This exercise expresses the will of the Republic of Korea (South Korea), the United States and Japan to enhance trilateral cooperation and safeguard freedom for peace and stability in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, including the Korean Peninsula. is.

According to this statement, the participants in this military exercise will focus on ballistic missile defense, air defense, anti-submarine warfare, search and rescue, disrupting the enemy’s naval power and defensive cyber training.

This exercise will be held in the midst of increasing North Korean military activities on the Korean Peninsula.

Seoul is in alliance with Western powers and Pyongyang is in alliance with Russia. The trilateral exercise was agreed upon last August during the Camp David meeting between US President Joe Biden, his South Korean counterpart Yoon Seok-yol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. They agreed to hold joint trilateral exercises on an annual and regular basis.

In this military exercise, the nuclear aircraft carrier “USS Theodore Roosevelt” of the US Navy, the South Korean destroyer and the helicopter destroyer of Japan are participating. The US warship arrived in South Korea on June 22, and it is the first arrival of an American aircraft carrier in South Korea in the past seven months after the presence of USS Carl Vinson.

Source: ISNA