US, ROK begin joint military drills

Protesters shout slogans denouncing the annual joint military exercises, dubbed "Key Resolve" and "Foal Eagle", between the Republic of Korea and the United States, during a rally near the US embassy in Seoul on Monday. Ahn Young-joon / Associated Press

Combined forces of the Republic of Korea and the United States began their annual military exercises on Monday amid signs of thawing inter-Korean relations.

The "Key Resolve" command post exercise will run to March 6, and the "Foal Eagle" field training exercise will continue through April 18, according to the ROK's Defense Ministry.

About 5,200 US troops, including 1,100 arriving from off the Korean Peninsula, will participate in the computer-simulated Key Resolve. About 7,500 US forces, including 5,100 from overseas, will join Foal Eagle.

The number of US servicemen taking part in Key Resolve is up from 3,500 last year, but the figure for Foal Eagle is down from around 10,000 in 2013.

The mixed figure was attributable to the US' automatic spending cuts, which caused a reduction in the budget-spending field training exercise and an expansion in the computer-simulated command post exercise.

About 10,000 ROK troops will participate in Key Resolve, and about 200,000 soldiers will take part in Foal Eagle, which involve a set of ground, air, naval, expeditionary and special operations.

"The ROK and the US plan to conduct 'Key Resolve' and 'Foal Eagle' military exercises as scheduled without any change in schedules and scales from today," ROK Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said.

This year's annual spring war games come amid improving relations between the ROK and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The neighbors held a reunion of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, the first in more than three years, on Saturday in the DPRK's Mount Kumgang resort.

Pyongyang had initially insisted that the US-ROK joint exercises be postponed until after the reunion concludes on Tuesday, but Seoul refused and - in a rare concession - Pyongyang allowed the family gatherings to go ahead as scheduled.

The second round of the family reunions began on Sunday and will run through Tuesday. A group of 357 elderly ROK citizens crossed the inter-Korean border by bus to the reunion venue to meet their long-lost relatives from the DPRK.

On Saturday, 80 elderly people from the ROK, accompanied by 56 family members, came back from the mountain resort after spending three days with their DPRK relatives during the first round of reunions.

The 19th round of reunions, the first such humanitarian event since November 2010, came after DPRK top leader Kim Jong-un expressed his willingness to improve relations with the ROK in his New Year's speech.

During last year's joint exercises, the US Air Force flew nuclear-capable B-52 bombers over the Korean Peninsula. US B-2 stealth bombers conducted a first-ever firing drill on the peninsula.

Tensions escalated on the peninsula as the DPRK staged its third nuclear test in February 2013, just two months after launching the three-stage, long-range rocket, Unha-3, which the ROK claimed was a long-range missile.

The ROK has asked the US to delay the transfer of wartime operational control of allied forces, citing growing DPRK threats to the point where Pyongyang threatened a nuclear strike against the ROK and US territory.

The wartime command of combined forces was initially supposed to be transferred to the ROK in 2007, but was postponed twice to December 2015. It is widely expected to be delayed once more later this year.

Xinhua-AFP