South Korea Turns Down U.S. Trilateral Drill Proposal
Washington put forward the trilateral drill last month, but the timing clashed with South Korea's Lunar New Year celebrations from Feb. 15–18 and fell uncomfortably close to Japan's territorial commemoration event, according to a news agency, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
The flashpoint centers on a remote cluster of islets — called Dokdo by South Korea and Takeshima by Japan — which has fueled persistent diplomatic friction between the two neighbors for decades. In 2005, a Japanese province designated Feb. 22 as "Takeshima Day," an annual regional ceremony reaffirming Tokyo's claim to the territory.
Tensions sharpened Sunday when Seoul formally protested Tokyo after a senior Japanese government official participated in this year's "Takeshima Day" proceedings.
In an effort to salvage military cooperation, South Korea proposed pushing the trilateral drills to a date well clear of the Japanese commemoration and offered an alternative bilateral aerial exercise with Washington to follow the event. Washington, however, declined both overtures earlier this month, informing Seoul it would instead proceed with a solo aerial drill.
In a separate but related development, South Korea filed a protest with US Forces Korea this week over an unusual aerial confrontation between American and Chinese fighter jets above the Yellow Sea. The standoff occurred Wednesday during a US Air Force training exercise involving 10 F-16 fighter jets, which entered airspace situated between South Korean and Chinese air defense identification zones. Beijing responded by scrambling its own aircraft to the area, though the encounter concluded without incident.
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