{"id":55183,"date":"2017-12-21T06:37:40","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T06:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=55183"},"modified":"2017-12-21T06:37:40","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T06:37:40","slug":"south-korea-asks-us-to-delay-military-drills-until-after-winter-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/south-korea-asks-us-to-delay-military-drills-until-after-winter-olympics.html","title":{"rendered":"South Korea asks US to delay military drills until after Winter Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Korea asks US to delay military drills until after Winter Olympics<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

South Korea is considering delaying its next round of joint military exercises with the United States until after the Winter Olympic Games to avoid provoking North Korea, the presidential office in Seoul said Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Delaying the huge exercises would be a considerable olive branch to Pyongyang and underscores Seoul\u2019s concern that North Korea might try to interfere with the Winter Games, which are due to be held just 50 miles south of the border between the two Koreas starting Feb. 9.<\/span><\/p>\n

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has raised concerns about the safety of American athletes at the Games, although the White House later said that they would attend.<\/span><\/p>\n

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said he had asked the U.S. military to postpone joint military exercises until after the Olympics, and the American command in Seoul said it was considering the request.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is possible for South Korea and the U.S. to review the possibility of postponing the drill,\u201d Moon told NBC News in an interview Tuesday, adding that this was dependent on North Korea not conducting any more missile or nuclear tests.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI have made such suggestion to the U.S., and the U.S. is currently reviewing. It all this depends on how North Korea behaves,\u201d Moon said.<\/span><\/p>\n

An official at the president\u2019s official residence, Blue House, clarified these remarks Wednesday, saying that the allies would only delay the exercises for the duration of the Games. The Paralympics finish March 18.<\/span><\/p>\n

eparately, a North Korean soldier escaped across the Demilitarized Zone into South Korea early Thursday morning, prompting warning shots to be fired from both sides. The soldier appeared in front of a guard post on the southern side shortly after 8 a.m. local time, the South\u2019s military said, and North Korean border guards came looking for him.<\/span><\/p>\n

This follows the high-stakes defection of another North Korean soldier through the DMZ last month.<\/span><\/p>\n

Each spring, the U.S. and South Korean militaries conduct huge field and computer-based exercises to train for a conflict with North Korea or the collapse of the regime there.<\/span><\/p>\n

The dates for next year\u2019s exercises have not yet been announced, but the Key Resolve computer-simulated command post exercise was held from March 8 to 23 this year, while the eight-week-long Foal Eagle field training exercises began on March 1 and continued through the end of April.<\/span><\/p>\n

About 17,000 American and more than 300,000 South Korean troops participated in the exercises, which included drills to pre-emptively \u201cdetect, defend, disrupt and destroy\u201d North Korean nuclear and missile facilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

The two militaries have this month been doing winter training exercises at PyeongChang, the site of the Winter Olympics, including ski combat training in temperatures that have plumbed depths of minus 4 degrees.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBoth the U.S. Marines and the [South Korean] marines have covered over-the-snow ability,\u201d U.S. Marine Corps Captain Thomas Rigby told reporters in PyeongChang this week. \u201cWe\u2019ve covered reconnaissance skills as well as critical combat skills in a cold-weather mountainous environment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The winter training exercises finish Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n

The proposal to delay the spring training exercises \u201cis limited to holding the Olympic Games peacefully,\u201d the unnamed official told local reporters.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the Olympics is an international event and the North Korean nuclear issue is creating a global crisis, it is only natural that we make efforts to find a solution [to the North Korean nuclear issue] through the Olympic Games if we must,\u201d the official said, according to the Yonhap News Agency.<\/span><\/p>\n

The United States Forces in Korea said that it also wanted to make sure that the games were a success.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe, as allies, are committed to an alliance decision on the exercises and will announce the decision when appropriate,\u201d it said in an emailed statement.<\/span><\/p>\n

North Korea has conducted more than 25 missile launches this year and detonated a huge nuclear device in September, leading to widespread international condemnation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nerves are running high in Seoul that Pyongyang may try to disrupt the event, and ticket sales are already disappointing. North Korea has not committed to sending any athletes to the games, although a figure skating pair has qualified to compete.<\/span><\/p>\n

South Korea plans to send about 5,000 troops to the Games, double the number that were dispatched during the 2002 soccer World Cup.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every year, North Korea vehemently denounces the joint military exercises as a pretext for an invasion.<\/span><\/p>\n

After this year\u2019s Key Resolve and Foal Eagle drills, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper said that they had been \u201cunprecedentedly provocative and dangerous confrontational hysteria in view of its scale, program and purpose.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The exercises showed that a nuclear war may break out on the Korean Peninsula any moment, the paper, the mouthpiece of the ruling Workers\u2019 Party, said in a commentary.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWar has not yet broken out on the peninsula, the world\u2019s biggest hotspot,\u201d it said, adding that this was entirely due to North Korea\u2019s nuclear deterrent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sourec:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2017\/12\/20\/south-korea-asks-us-to-delay-military-drills-until-after-winter-olympics\/<\/span><\/p>\n

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