S. Korea, US and Japan hold submarine drills amid tension with N. Korea
South Korea, United States and Japan started joint submarine drills amid rising tension with North Korea.
On Monday, naval officials of the South Korea, US and Japan started their first anti-submarine drills to boost their coordination against increasing North Korean missile threats.
South Korean military said the two-day drills come as North Korea’s recent unveiling of a type of battlefield nuclear warhead prompted worries the country may conduct its first nuclear test since 2017.
The maritime exercises in international waters off South Korea’s southern island of Jeju involved the nuclear-powered USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and naval destroyers from South Korea, the US and Japan, South Korea’s Defence Ministry said in a statement.
The training was arranged to improve the three countries’ capacities to respond to underwater security threats posed by North Korea’s advancing submarine-launched ballistic missiles and other assets, the statement said.
It said the three countries were to detect and track unmanned South Korean and US underwater vehicles posing as enemy submarines and other assets.
Submarine-launched missiles by North Korea are serious security threats to the United States and its allies because it’s harder to spot such launches in advance. In recent years, the North has been testing sophisticated underwater-launched ballistic missiles and pushing to build bigger submarines including a nuclear-powered one.
