Trump hints at Kim contacts after scaling back Seoul drills

The 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises are designed to prepare for a possible war with North Korea.

Colonel Ryan Donald, spokesman for the US and South Korean Combined Forces Command, has said they will simulate combat against North Korean troops hardened by their deployment on Russia’s side in its invasion of Ukraine.

Seoul’s presidential office told AFP it remained in “close coordination” with Washington over the exercises.

Pyongyang decries the drills as dress rehearsals for an invasion.

It recently test-fired a ballistic missile over the Sea of Japan, and warned on Friday it could respond to the exercises with a “new level of deterrent”.

During his first term, Trump said after his initial meeting with North Korea’s Kim in Singapore in June 2018 that Washington would suspend the “provocative” drills.

The United States stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea to bolster the country’s defenses, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

But Trump’s repeated criticism of time-honored alliances has cast doubt on US commitments to security in East Asia.

The announcement of the scaled-down drills came as the only US aircraft carrier operating in the Pacific region, the USS George Washington, is being redeployed to the Middle East to relieve the long-deployed USS Lincoln, which has been the focus of concerns over mental health and supply issues.