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South Korean and US marines are planning their first joint exercise on a frontline island, officials said Thursday, in an apparent show of force to North Korea following deadly border incidents. "The two allies are discussing details of such a joint marine exercise," a defense ministry spokesman told AFP. Yonhap news agency said the drill was likely to take place in July on Baengnyeong island in the Yellow Sea, before annual US-South Korea military drills dubbed "Ulchi Freedom Guardian" get under way elsewhere in August. Baengnyeong island is near where North Korea allegedly torpedoed one of South Korea's warships in March last year, killing 46 sailors. Tensions have been high since the South accused the North of sinking the warship. Pyongyang denied the charge but went on to shell Yeonpyeong island last November, killing four people including civilians. Lee, who is on a European tour, said in Berlin this week that he could invite Kim to a multinational nuclear summit in Seoul next March. However, North Korea has dismissed as "ridiculous" the South's hosting such a summit. "It is ridiculous that South Korea will hold a nuclear summit after it made its country the world's biggest nuclear war outpost and nuclear arsenal," the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, a semi-official organ handling inter-Korean relations, said in a statement. The statement was carried by the North's official KCNA news agency late Wednesday. Agencies |
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