US, SKorea and Japan agree to hold joint military drills

PHOTO CAPTION: A Republic of Korea SEAL checks their sector of fire during Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure training during the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2022 joint drill. (Royal Canadian Armed Forces photo by Corporal Djalma Vuong-De Ramos via U.S. Defense Visual Information Distribution Service)

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States, Japan and South Korea agreed to hold new trilateral joint exercises this summer, a joint statement issued by U.S Department of Defense said on Sunday, after a meeting of the three allies' defense ministers.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Japan's Defense Minister Minoru Kihara and South Korea's Defense Minister Shin Won-sik met on Sunday in Singapore on the sidelines of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security summit there.

The three "committed to continue to strengthen trilateral cooperation to ensure peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula, the Indo-Pacific, and beyond," according to the statement.

The three also agreed to establish a Trilateral Security Cooperation Framework this year in an effort to institutionalize their three-way defense cooperation.

The top defense officials of the three countries criticized North Korea's recent launches of ballistic missiles and a military spy satellite using ballistic missile technology as a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.



(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim in Seoul and Kaori Kaneko in Tokyo; Editing by Peter Graff)