SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea, the U.S. and Japan will go ahead with a trilateral military drill next month to better deal with North Korean nuclear threats, officials in Seoul said Friday, a day after North Korea vowed to retaliate against what it called U.S. hostilities.The development further dims prospects for an early resumption of diplomacy between North Korea and the U.S., despite President Donald Trump’s recent decision to scale back a major bilateral military drill with South Korea in an apparent goodwill gesture toward the North.South Korea’s military said in a statement the Freedom Edge exercise will start on Sept. 7 for a five-day run in the waters off South Korea’s southern Jeju Island. It said the exercise is defensive in nature and meant to respond to North Korean nuclear and missile threats as well as promote regional peace and stability.
North Korea has previously slammed the trilateral drill as a “reckless show of strength” that showed its adversaries’ confrontational stance against it. Pyongyang has also said the drill contained a U.S. intention to lay siege to China and exert pressure on Russia.The Freedom Edge drill, a U.S.-South Korea-Japan exercise, was launched in 2024. It’s designed to increase the sophistication of previous exercises with simultaneous air and naval drills geared toward improving joint ballistic missile defense, anti-submarine warfare, surveillance and other skills and capabilities.
