North criticizes South-U.S.-Japan military drill, threatens countermeasures

North Korea's state media on Sunday blasted South Korea, the United States and Japan for carrying out a trilateral exercise, two days after a plenary meeting of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party opened with leader Kim Jong-un in attendance.

A F/A-18 Super Hornet supersonic fighter jet is on the deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt south of Jeju Island during the trilateral Freedom Edge exercise on Friday. [U.S. NAVY]

North Korea's state media on Sunday blasted South Korea, the United States and Japan for carrying out a trilateral exercise, two days after a plenary meeting of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party opened with leader Kim Jong-un in attendance.

In a statement disseminated by the North’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the North’s Foreign Ministry threatened unspecified countermeasures against the United States and its regional allies.

According to the ministry, the North will “never overlook the moves of the U.S. and its followers to strengthen the military bloc,” adding that it will “firmly defend the sovereignty, security and interests of the state and peace in the region through offensive and overwhelming countermeasures.”

Sunday’s statement was released a day after South Korea, the United States and Japan concluded Freedom Edge, their first trilateral multi-domain military exercise aimed at strengthening their joint deterrence of the security threat posed by North Korea.

The previous day, the Workers’ Party convened the 10th enlarged plenary meeting of the party’s 8th Central Committee to review state policy performances in the first half of the year.

The KCNA said participants at the meeting are expected to “discuss and decide several important and immediate matters in order to maintain the upward momentum of the comprehensive development of Korean-style socialism.”

The state news agency said five agenda items were approved unanimously for discussion by members of the Workers’ Party Central Committee but did not describe the items in question.

Earlier, the party newspaper Rodong Sinmun reported that the meeting would be a “politically important” event, but also did not provide specifics.

According to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the new trilateral exercise is aimed at improving trilateral interoperability.

Freedom Edge is the first iteration of a regular exercise conducted in multiple domains, including air, sea, underwater, space and cyber. It is meant to advance trilateral military cooperation in a step up from the existing bilateral drills between the United States and its East Asian allies.

The U.S. Navy mobilized its Nimitz-class, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which arrived at a Busan naval base on June 22 to take part in the exercise. It was joined by warships and aircraft, including the Aegis-equipped destroyers USS Halsey and USS Daniel Inouye, the South Korean Navy's Aegis-equipped destroyer Seoae Ryu Seong-ryong and Japan's helicopter destroyer JS Ise.

Earlier this month, the defense chiefs of the three countries agreed on the Freedom Edge exercise in talks held on the margins of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. The exercise builds on separate bilateral drills with the U.S. and its East Asian allies — Freedom Shield with Seoul and Keen Edge with Tokyo.

The latest drill is a result of President Yoon Suk Yeol, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's agreement at their summit in Camp David in August last year to conduct multi-domain trilateral exercises on a regular basis to enhance coordinated capabilities and cooperation.

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Public Affairs and JCS said that the exercise would focus on cooperative ballistic missile defense, air defense, anti-submarine warfare, search and rescue, maritime interdiction and defensive cyber training.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]