S. Korea, US begin annual military drill

South Korea and US forces on Tuesday launched their annual joint exercise in their latest attempt to improve their defense posture against North Korea, military officials said. The Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG), launched in 1975 to enhance interoperability between the two forces, will continue until Aug. 26, according to South Korea''s news agency (Yonhap). This year, the computer-aided exercise will mobilize some 56,000 South Korean troops and about 30,000 US soldiers, including some 3,000 joining in from the US and other bases around the Pacific region, according to officials here. The two sides will also simulate destroying weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from North Korea, officials said earlier this month. "Through this drill, we will try to strengthen our readiness posture against threats by North Korea," an official of Seoul''s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. In a statement, the Combined Forces Command (CFC) said the UFG will look to improve the South Korea-US alliance''s ability to defend South Korea "by exercising senior leaders'' decision-making capabilities and by training commanders and staffs from both nations in planning, command and control operations, intelligence, logistics, and personnel procedures." "It is challenging and realistic training focused on preparing, preventing and prevailing against the full range of current and future external threats to the Republic of Korea and the region," Gen. James D. Thurman, CFC commander, was quoted as saying. "We are applying lessons learned out of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as those garnered by the Alliance''s recent experiences with North Korean provocations on the peninsula and past exercises." The JCS official also said this year''s exercise will help South Korea prepare for the transfer of wartime operational command from Washington to Seoul in 2015 and alleviate concerns over a security vacuum. According to the JCS, South Korea will conduct drills under a reformed command structure, under which chiefs of the Army and the Navy will exercise operational command. Currently, the chairman of the JCS holds operational command in peace time. The defense ministry has proposed an altered structure so that the JCS chairman will delegate responsibilities to the heads of each branch. If approved, the ministry''s idea will take effect in November next year. The Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, rather than a peace treaty. About 28,500 US soldiers are stationed here as a legacy of the war. North Korea has long balked at these joint maneuvers, claiming they amount to a prelude to war. Seoul and Washington, though, have countered that the UFG is defensive in nature. Last Saturday, North Korea repeated its plea for the cancellation of the UFG. It argued that Seoul was intentionally trying to spoil the atmosphere of dialogue on the Korean Peninsula "in collusion with outside forces." This year''s UFG comes weeks after Kim Kye-gwan, the North''s first vice foreign minister, met with Stephen Bosworth, the US special envoy on Pyongyang, in New York to discuss ways to resume the long-stalled multinational talks on denuclearizing North Korea. It followed a meeting of nuclear envoys of the two Koreas in Indonesia on the sidelines of a regional security conference. The CFC said the United Nations Command (UNC) has informed the North Korean Army, through its mission in the truce village of Panmunjom, of the "non-provocative nature" of the exercise.