PressTV-US, South Korea to resume annual military drills

The United States and South Korea say their annual joint military drills will resume next month, despite a diplomatic thaw with North Korea, a move that risks irking Pyongyang ahead of a planned summit President Donald Trump.

The exercises, code-named Foal Eagle and Key Resolve, will involve some 23,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Korean troops, the US Defense Department announced Tuesday.

“Secretary of Defense James Mattis and the Republic of Korea Minister of National Defense Song Young-moo have agreed to resume the annual combined exercises including Foal Eagle and Key Resolve which were de-conflicted with the schedule of the Olympic Games,” Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning said in a statement.

“The exercises are expected to resume April 1, 2018, at a scale similar to that of the previous years,” the statement added.

“Foal Eagle” is a series of field training exercises with approximately 11,500 US troops taking…

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