The exercises, which will involve Aegis destroyers from the three nations, will take place in late June off Hawaii, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a text message Monday, according to Bloomberg.
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In the latest sign of strengthening defense cooperation between South Korea, the US and Japan, it will be the first time that the three nations hold three-way drills against North Korea’s missile threats.
“The training will involve detecting and tracing an imaginary missile from North Korea, but will not include missile interception”, said the official.
Japan and the United States have informally agreed that cooperation among the three countries will serve as a deterrent against China’s ballistic missiles in the future, the sources said.
It added that the training comes after the US and Japan asked South Korea to participate in a joint missile defense exercise during the deputy foreign ministerial meeting among the three nations on April 19th. It was the first such agreement among the three countries. But Seoul and Tokyo don’t, largely a result of lingering public resentments in South Korea against Japan over its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. A series of nuclear and missile tests have resulted in United Nations sanctions against North Korea.
“To hold such drills has been made a decision to better defend South Korea from ever-increasing nuclear and missile threats from North Korea and detailed plans have been worked out”, a South Korean Defense Ministry official said.
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During vice ministerial talks in Seoul on April 19 between Japan, the United States and South Korea, the Japanese and USA sides made representations to South Korea to make the missile defense drill a tripartite exercise. The joint exercise was conducted for the first time by the USA and Indian navies in 1992.
