US, South Korea conduct joint bombing drills

SEOUL: The United States flew a B-1B bomber over the Korean Peninsula for the first joint bombing drills with South Korea in seven years, the South Korean military said on Wednesday.

The development comes amid heightened tensions after North's Korea sent trash-filled balloons to the South and resorted to jamming the latter's GPS signals. South Korean military on Tuesday suspended a 2018 inter-Korean military pact, Yonhap news agency reported.

Meanwhile, during Wednesday's exercise, the US bomber dropped Joint Direct Attack Munitions at an unspecified firing range in the country, while being escorted by South Korean F-15K fighter jets, according to the ministry as cited by Yonhap news agency.

US B-1B bombers last held such an exercise in South Korea in 2017.

"Under close coordination between South Korea and the United States, this exercise took place with a focus on implementing the U.S. extended deterrence commitment and strengthening the combined defence posture," the ministry said.

The ministry said the South's F-15Ks also took part in the live-fire drills and demonstrated the "solid" combined defence posture against North Korea's nuclear and missile threats.

The US bomber also staged joint air drills with South Korean F-35A and KF-16 fighters, as well as US F-35B and F-16 jets. It did not specify the number of B-1B bombers deployed for the exercise.

On Tuesday, the South Korean military said that it would resume all military activities along the demarcation line separating the two Koreas and the North West Islands, for the first time in 5 years after suspending a 2018 inter-Korean military pact.

On June 2, a trilateral ministerial meeting held in Singapore, attended by US Secretary of Defence Lloyd J. Austin, Japan's Minister of Defense Kihara Minoru, and South Korea's Minister of National Defense Shin Won-sik.

The three officials said there was no change in their nations' position on Taiwan and that regional peace was "an indispensable element of security and prosperity in the international community." They also called for a peaceful resolution to cross-strait issues, as per Taiwan News.

After the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice, the two adjacent nations were cut off from one another.

The US and its security allies have criticized Pyongyang for attempting to launch on May 27 a satellite-carrying rocket in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions, while Russia and China defended North Korea's action.

At a UN security council meeting convened earlier this month, Khaled Khiari, Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East and Asia and the Pacific, said that North Korea has significantly increased its missile launch activities since 2022, including more than 100 launches using ballistic missile technology, in violation of the relevant Security Council resolutions