US, Japan, S. Korea launch 1st trilateral military drill

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) - The US, Japan, and South Korea Thursday launched their first trilateral multi-domain military drill on the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the three-day multi-domain exercise, named Freedom Edge, began early Thursday, in the country’s southern resort island of Jeju, Seoul-based Yonhap News reported.

“Freedom Edge expresses the will of the RoK (Republic of Korea), US and Japan to promote trilateral interoperability and protect freedom for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, including the Korean Peninsula,” the JCS said, using the official name of South Korea as RoK.

The participants “will focus on ballistic missile defense, air defense, anti-submarine warfare, search and rescue, maritime interdiction and defensive cyber training.”

The drill comes amid increasing rival military activities on the Korean Peninsula where the divided Seoul and Pyongyang are closing alliances with Western powers as well as Russia.

The inaugural trilateral drill was agreed last August during the Camp David summit of US President Joe Biden, his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

They had agreed to hold “annual, named, multidomain” trilateral exercises on a regular basis.

US Navy's nuclear-powered USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, the South's ROKS Seoae Ryu Seong-ryong destroyer and Japan's JS Ise helicopter destroyer are taking part in the military exercise.

The US warship arrived in South Korea on June 22, marking the first arrival of a US aircraft carrier in South Korea in seven months, since the November visit of the USS Carl Vinson.​​​​​​​