South Korea and the US began their first large-scale joint military exercises in four years on Monday, amid growing tensions over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme and regional concerns about the future of Taiwan.
The exercises will include joint aircraft carrier strike drills and amphibious landing training and represent the first large-scale drills since 2018, when they were scaled down ahead of a summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and then US president Donald Trump.
The South Korean government also launched a four-day civil defence exercise on Monday involving 480,000 people from approximately 4,000 public institutions.