By Lee Min-hyung
The United States has no plans to downsize joint military exercises with South Korea over the ongoing verbal provocations from the North, the U.S. defense department said Thursday.
The response came two days after Pyongyang denounced Seoul and Washington for carrying out the joint Max Thunder air drills. Citing the exercises, the regime also threatened Wednesday to cancel the upcoming summit between its leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump.
“The scope of our exercises has not changed,” Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said. “There are alliance decisions, and this is something that we do to ensure the readiness of both our forces as well as the South Korean forces.”
For the joint exercise, Seoul and Washington deployed F-22 Raptor stealth jets, F-15Ks and F-16s on the Korean Peninsula. The joint exercise started its two-week run on May 11.
South Korea's Ministry of National Defense also said its position is in line with the Pentagon, saying it does not have any plans to scale down or cancel the drills and will carry them out as planned.
White also made it clear there has been no talk of changing its scope or reducing its scale, underlining that the annual exercise is “defensive in nature.”
Pyongyang canceled a planned inter-Korean high-level dialogue on Wednesday, claiming Max Thunder goes against the peace momentum.
In response, South Korea expressed regret over the North's abrupt cancellation, urging the regime to return to the dialogue table.