New civilian-military exercise defensive in nature: Defence Ministry

SEOUL, May 27 (Bernama) -- A new civilian-military exercise that kicked off on Monday is "defensive in nature," the Defence Ministry said, stressing that South Korea has been fully implementing last year's inter-Korean military agreement, Yonhap news agency reported.

With around 480,000 civilians, government officials and armed service members across the country participating, the inaugural Ulchi Taegeuk exercise began on the day for a four-day run to strengthen the country's crisis management capabilities in dealing with various safety and security threats, as well as to ensure a readiness posture.

The new type of exercise will combine two existing programmes: the Taegeuk command post exercise led by the South Korean military and the government's Ulchi exercise, which was part of the South Korea-United States (US) Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) exercise.

"What we are staging is an exercise with defensive features, and its scale was adjusted in accordance with relevant regulations," ministry spokesperson Choi Hyun Soo told a regular briefing.

Under the new format, this year's exercise is made up of two parts: The first part that will take place for the first two days involves contingency measures and training to deal with large-scale disasters, and the second part to run from Tuesday through Thursday will be a command post exercise aimed at strengthening military readiness in case of military provocations.

Asked about the ministry's stance on North Korea's repeated calls to stop combined exercises with the United States, the spokesperson simply said that South Korea is "faithfully carrying out the September military agreement."

During the third inter-Korean summit held in September in Pyongyang, the two Koreas signed the Comprehensive Military Agreement that enlists a series of measures, including the stopping of all hostile acts against each other, to reduce tensions on the peninsula and build trust.

North Korea has long bashed the allies for their combined drills, calling them rehearsals for invasion, while Seoul and Washington have argued that they are defensive in nature.

The North has yet to make any comments on the Ulchi Taegeuk exercise.

-- BERNAMA