South Korea shortens war games with US, citing Washington request
South Korea's annual joint military drills with the US will be cut short by six days at the request of Washington, its defence ministry has announced. Seoul said that the "period and scale" of the 2026 Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise had been adjusted due to a "proposal of the US side".
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Key Facts
- Fact 1: Seoul said that the "period and scale" of the 2026 Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise had been adjusted due to a "proposal of the US side".
- Fact 2: The drill will now conclude on 21 August, rather than 27 August as planned.
- Fact 3: "We have 39,000 soldiers over there guarding you from Kim Jong Un, your next door neighbour, and you're not going to help us on a very easy military operation in Iran," he said.
- Fact 4: At the time, they said the event would be similar in scale to previous years, with about 18,000 South Korean soldiers participating.
South Korea's annual joint military drills with the US will be cut short by six days at the request of Washington, its defence ministry has announced. Seoul said that the "period and scale" of the 2026 Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise had been adjusted due to a "proposal of the US side".
The drill will now conclude on 21 August, rather than 27 August as planned. President Donald Trump, who has accused Seoul of refusing to take part in action against Iran, told reporters on Wednesday that he expects to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later this year. South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun told a parliamentary hearing that neither South Korean nor US officials had been aware in advance about Trump's plans to scale back joint military drills with Seoul.
(Original synthesis pending human/AI review — generated by the stub provider by selecting real sentences from the source material, not by writing new analysis or commentary.)
Original source: BBC News World
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