South Korea, US hold submarine drill amid tensions

South Korea and the US on Monday began an anti-submarine drill in the tensely guarded western sea amid high tensions with North Korea, Seoul's Yonhap News Agency reported. The anti-submarine warfare exercise, which lasts until Friday, is the second in a planned series of this year's combined military maneuvers following the last one in February. The joint naval drill mobilizes a nuclear-powered Los Angeles-class submarine, Aegis destroyers, P-3C maritime surveillance aircraft deployed from US bases as well as South Korean destroyers, submarines and maritime aircraft, the report said. The latest military training comes after the two allies completed their two-month-long exercise last week, amid high inter-Korean tensions due to Pyongyang's warlike threats against Seoul and Washington. On Sunday, the North's official Korean Central News Agency condemned the upcoming naval drill, saying the fate of a joint industrial zone in the North hinges on Seoul. Claiming a 97,000-ton Nimitz-class nuclear powered super carrier is expected to join the training, the North Korean Policy Department of the National Defense Commission called on South Korea to stop "hostile acts and military provocations" if it wants to normalize the suspended Kaesong Industrial Zone. In response to Pyongyang's call to stop military training to resume inter-Korean talks, Seoul's defense ministry on Monday vowed not to give in to Pyongyang's demands. "It is inappropriate that the North is demanding the cancellation of South Korea-US joint drills by linking it with the Kaesong Industrial Complex," the ministry said. The Nimitz Strike Group arrived in the US 7th Fleet on May 3 to conduct exercises and port visits to enhance maritime partnerships and promote peace and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region along with its allies, the US Navy said. North Korea has a large fleet of submarines, and one of them is blamed for torpedoing the South Korean warship Cheonan in the Yellow Sea in March 2010, killing 46 sailors. About 28,500 American troops are stationed in South Korea as the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice agreement, not a peace treaty.