The maneuvers will be carried out in international waters southeast of the South Korean island of Jeju
South Korea and Japan will resume, on June 7, a naval search and rescue exercise that had been suspended for nine years, in a context of recent rapprochement between the two nations in the face of regional tensions.
The details of the exercise were finalized this Saturday, during a bilateral meeting in Singapore, on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue, between South Korean Defense Minister, Ahn Gyu-back, and his Japanese counterpart, Shinjiro Koizumi, said a statement from the South Korean Ministry of Defense.
The Search and Rescue Exercise (SAREX) is a maritime drill aimed at improving the joint response capability between the South Korean Navy and the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force in the case of ships in emergency situations, as well as promoting humanitarian cooperation.
On the South Korean side, the 4,900-ton Cheonjabong landing ship will participate, while Japan will mobilize the 7,250-ton Aegis Kongo destroyer and an SH-60K maritime operations helicopter, according to the statement.
The maneuvers will be carried out in international waters southeast of the South Korean island of Jeju.
Both countries agreed in January to resume these maneuvers, without specifying at the time the date or the participating media.
The exercises had been suspended after, in 2018, Japan accused a South Korean destroyer of pointing its firing radar at a Japanese patrol plane in the Japanese exclusive economic zone, in a year marked by strong bilateral tensions due to historical disputes.
The restart of SAREX, last held in December 2017, is yet another sign of the strengthening of defense cooperation between Seoul and Tokyo, in a context marked by recent missile launches by Pionyang and growing tensions between China and Japan around Taiwan.
At this Saturday’s meeting, Koizumi, who took office in October, stated that there had never before been “such a close meeting between the two parties”, highlighting that these sessions do not just respond to friendship, but to the need to face the difficult regional security context, as cited by the South Korean news agency Yonhap.
Likewise, in mid-May, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi held a summit in Andong, Lee’s hometown, despite the Japanese leader’s historical revisionist profile, and reaffirmed the need to cooperate with the United States on security issues, including the denuclearization of North Korea.
