SEOUL: South Korean forces began two days of expanded drills on Sunday around an island also claimed by Japan, prompting a protest from Tokyo only days after Seoul said it would scrap an intelligence-sharing pact with its neighbor amid worsening relations.
Tokyo and Seoul have long been at loggerheads over the sovereignty of the group of islets called Takeshima in Japanese and Dokdo in Korean, which lie about halfway between the East Asian neighbors in the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea.
The latest military drills began on Sunday and included naval, air, and army forces, as well as marines, a South Korean ministry of defense official said.
The Japanese foreign ministry called the drills unacceptable and said it had lodged a protest with South Korea calling for them to end.
The island is “obviously an inherent part of the territory of Japan,” Kenji Kanasugi, the director general at the ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, told the South Korean Embassy in Tokyo in a statement.
Ko Min-jung, a spokeswoman for South Korea’s presidential Blue House, said the drill was an annual exercise and not aimed at any specific country.
“It’s an exercise to guard our sovereignty and territory,” she told reporters in Seoul.
The exercise included significantly more South Korean forces than previously involved and spanned a wider area in the sea between South Korea and Japan, a South Korean navy official told Reuters.
For the first time the drills included an Aegis-equipped destroyer and army special forces, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Tensions in the region have spiked amid a worsening political and economic spat between South Korea and Japan, a string of missile launches by North Korea, and increasingly assertive military patrols by China and Russia.
South Korea announced the scrapping of an intelligence-sharing pact with Japan on Thursday, drawing a swift protest from Tokyo and deepening a decades-old dispute over wartime history that has hit trade and undercut security cooperation over North Korea.
Relations between South Korea and Japan began to deteriorate late last year following a diplomatic row over compensation for wartime forced laborers during Japan’s occupation of Korea.
They soured further when Japan tightened its curbs on exports of high-tech materials needed by South Korea’s chip industry, and again this month when Tokyo said it would remove South Korea’s fast-track export status.
The disputed islands have long been one of the most sensitive areas of contention between Japan and South Korea.
A detachment of South Korean guards has been stationed there since the 1950s and South Korea has conducted annual defense drills in the area.
The current exercises had been delayed as relations deteriorated, Yonhap news agency reported.
In July, South Korea and Japan responded to what they saw as a violation of their air space near the islands by a Russian military plane.
The South Korean navy said the drills were designed to underscore its commitment to defending the broader area.
“The military has changed the name of the drills to ‘East Sea Territorial Protection Exercise’ reflecting the scale and meaning of the drills to solidify the military’s resolve to protect the territory in the East Sea,” the South Korean navy said in a statement. Previous drills had been called the “Dokdo Defense Exercise.”
Expanded South Korean military drills around disputed island draw Japanese protest
Expanded South Korean military drills around disputed island draw Japanese protest
- Tokyo and Seoul have long been at loggerheads over the sovereignty of the group of islets
- The Japanese foreign ministry called the drills unacceptable and said it had lodged a protest with South Korea
US says Mexican cartel drones breached Texas airspace
- Drone breach comes some five months into a US military campaign targeting alleged drug-smuggling boats
- US media also reported that the El Paso airspace closure may have been caused by the US military
HOUSTON: The Trump administration said Wednesday that Mexican cartel drones caused the temporary closure of a Texas airport, but some Democratic lawmakers pushed back, suggesting US military activity was responsible for the disruptive shutdown.
The report of the drone breach comes some five months into a US military campaign targeting alleged drug-smuggling boats, and could provide a pretext for President Donald Trump to follow through on his threats to expand the strikes to land.
Trump has specifically threatened to attack cartels inside Mexico, which said it had “no information” on drones at the border.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said late Tuesday the airspace over the Texas border city of El Paso would be shut to all aircraft for 10 days, citing unspecified national “security reasons,” only to lift the closure after less than 24 hours.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the FAA and the Defense Department “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion,” adding: “The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.”
A US administration official meanwhile said the breach was by “Mexican cartel drones,” and that US forces “took action to disable the drones,” without providing specifics.
But Democratic Representative Veronica Escobar, whose district includes El Paso, questioned the Trump administration’s explanation, saying it was “not what we in Congress have been told.”
“The information coming from the administration does not add up and it’s not the information that I was able to gather overnight and this morning,” Escobar told journalists.
And top Democratic lawmakers from the House Committee on Transportation suggested the Pentagon may have been responsible for the situation, saying defense policy legislation allows the US military to “act recklessly in the public airspace.”
The lawmakers called for a solution that ensures “the Department of Defense will not jeopardize safety and disrupt the freedom to travel.”
- War against ‘narco-terrorists’ -
US media also reported that the El Paso airspace closure may have been caused by the US military, with CNN saying the shutdown was the result of Pentagon plans to use a counter-drone laser without coordinating with the FAA.
The Pentagon referred questions on the closure to the FAA, which said when it announced the move that “no pilots may operate an aircraft in the areas” covered by the restrictions and warned of potentially “deadly force” if aircraft were deemed a threat.
It updated its guidance Wednesday morning, saying on X that the closure was lifted.
Trump’s administration insists it is effectively at war with “narco-terrorists,” carrying out strikes on alleged traffickers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, while the US president has repeatedly said he plans to expand the strikes to land.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum opposes US military intervention in her country but has so far managed to negotiate a fine diplomatic line with Trump.
She has stepped up extradition of cartel leaders to the United States and reinforced border cooperation amid tariff threats from Trump, for whom curbing illegal migration from Mexico was a key election promise.
Sheinbaum told a news conference Wednesday that she had “no information on the use of drones at the border,” but that her government was investigating.
The United States began carrying out strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in September, a campaign that has killed at least 130 people and destroyed dozens of vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.
US officials have not provided definitive evidence that the vessels are involved in drug trafficking, prompting heated debate about the legality of the operations, which experts say amount to extrajudicial killings.
Trump also ordered a shocking special forces raid in Caracas at the beginning of January to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington accused of leading a drug cartel.
