SEOUL (Kyodo) -- South Korea and the United States on Monday commenced a joint military exercise to enhance their readiness against threats from North Korea, but with about half of the drills postponed to September in a move seen as part of a conciliatory approach toward the North taken by President Lee Jae Myung.
The Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise is due to run through Aug. 28, and the latter part will take place next month due to the summer heat, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff has said without giving a precise schedule. The exercise will feature about 40 field drills that reflect lessons learned from patterns of recent warfare.
The annual event has long been denounced by North Korea. Its defense minister, No Kwang Chol, called this year's exercises "provocative moves" that amplify unpredictability on the Korean Peninsula in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency on Aug. 11.
The JCS on Aug. 7 said that the scale of the exercise, to be joined by 18,000 South Korean personnel, is similar to last year's.
U.S. Forces Korea did not reveal the number of its troops participating in the exercise. But an official from the U.N. Command, which has been overseeing the armistice that ended the 1950-1953 Korean War, said earlier this month the exercise would be joined by a total of some 21,000 personnel from USFK, the South Korean military and UNC.
The JSC said that it and USFK decided to spread out the scheduling of the event and hold about 20 of the drills in September, after discussions about extreme heat, maintaining "a year-round balanced combined defense posture" and other factors.
The decision came as South Korea under Lee, who took office in June, has taken measures to reduce tensions with North Korea such as halting propaganda broadcasts along the inter-Korean border and dismantling loudspeakers used for the broadcasts.
The South Korean military said earlier this month that it confirmed North Korea has begun dismantling loudspeakers that are used to blast noise along the border. But Pyongyang has denied this, saying it has no intention of improving ties with Seoul.
