South Korea says alliance with US ‘as robust as ever’

South Korea says its alliance with the United States remains “as robust as ever,” two days after US President Donald Trump suggested that he would end the US’s annual war games with the South and bring American soldiers in the region back home.

According to Press TV, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said at a press conference with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono in Seoul on Thursday “The alliance between South Korea and the United States is as robust as ever.”

“The joint South Korea-US military exercise is a matter for the South Korea-United States alliance. In terms of that, it is an issue that should be decided by military authorities,” she added.

Following a first-ever summit with North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore, Trump suggested he would halt its “provocative” joint military drills with South Korea.

“The war games are very expensive, we pay for the majority of them,” Trump told a news conference in Singapore. “Under the circumstances, that we’re negotiating... I think it’s inappropriate to be having war games.”

“We will be stopping the war games, which will save us a tremendous amount of money, unless and until we see the future negotiation is not going along like it should. But we’ll be saving a tremendous amount of money. Plus, I think it’s very provocative,” Trump said.

The annual drills have in the past been a major source of tension on the Korean Peninsula but have also been considered by Seoul and Tokyo as a bulwark against perceived North Korean aggression.

Japan reacted with concern at Washington’s plans to end military exercises with Seoul, saying such drills were vital for East Asian security.

At the end of that summit, Trump and Kim signed a brief, broadly-worded document according to which both sides committed to working “towards complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

The top diplomats from the US, South Korea, and Japan on Thursday promised to work together to ensure that Pyongyang would abandon its nuclear weapons program.

ME