S. Korea, US to hold exercise in East Sea

ROK Navy will stage independent drill in West Sea

By Jung Sung-ki

Staff reporter

South Korea and the United States have changed the venue for their joint naval exercise against North Korean provocation from the West Sea to the East Sea, apparently so as not to provoke a reaction from China, a senior government official said Thursday.

The drill will involve the nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier the USS George Washington, the official at the Ministry of National Defense said on condition of anonymity. .

However, he said, an independent naval exercise by the South Korean Navy will be held in the West Sea in a show of force against the North, which has been accused of torpedoing a South Korean warship in the disputed western waters in March.

Detailed plans on the joint and independent maritime maneuvers around the Korean Peninsula will be set during the "2+2" meeting of foreign and defense ministers from the two countries in Seoul next Wednesday, the official said.

"Some say China didn't help much in adopting the U.N. Security Council's (UNSC) presidential statement condemning the attack on the Cheonan," he told The Korea Times.

"But that's not the case. If you compare the latest statement to a previous one adopted in 2006 after the North's first nuclear test, the tone is much stronger, enough to give a warning signal to the North."

"We'll need more Chinese help in resolving inter-Korean issues in the future. So we don't need to risk relations with China," he said.

The UNSC statement condemned the attack but stopped short of directly blaming North Korea, though a Seoul-led multinational investigation team concluded in May that the communist state was responsible for the ship sinking that claimed the lives of 46 sailors.

Seoul and Washington hinted that they would hold a large-scale naval drill involving a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the West Sea to protest North Korea's attack on the Cheonan.

China has publicly opposed the drill because the location of the planned exercise is close to its eastern territorial waters.

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon spokesman, snubbed China's protest, saying the United States would go ahead with the plan.

"This is a matter of our ability to exercise in the open seas, in international waters," he said. "Those determinations are made by us, and us alone."

한미합동훈련 동해로 장소 변경

국방부 고위당국자는 중국의 반발을 피하기 위해 한미합동훈련의 장소를 당초 예정되었던 서해에서 동해로 바꾼다고 밝혔다.

이번 훈련에는 미군 항공모함 조지 워싱턴호가 참가함으로써 규모가 확대될 것으로 보인다.

이에 관련 국방부는 오는 21일 한미 양국 외교 및 국방장관이 만나 훈련에 관련된 구체적인 사항을 논의할 예정이라고 밝혔다.

또한 한국군은 서해에서 북한의 천안함 침몰에 대해 무력 시위을 목적으로 한 단독 훈련을 진행할 예정이다.