US, South Korea, Japan Kick Off ‘Freedom Edge’ Drills as North Korea Warns of Consequences

The United States, South Korea and Japan have launched one of their biggest joint air and naval exercises yet, and Pyongyang is fuming.

The manoeuvres, dubbed “Freedom Edge,” started Monday off South Korea’s Jeju Island and will run through Friday. According to the US Indo-Pacific Command, the drills include advanced ballistic-missile and air-defence scenarios and represent “the most advanced demonstration of trilateral defence cooperation to date.”

Seoul’s Defence Ministry says the goal is to sharpen the allies’ ability to counter North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threats. Protesters in Seoul on Monday denounced the drills, calling them provocative.

North Korea’s leadership didn’t hold back either. In a statement released Sunday through state media, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, blasted the exercises as a “reckless show of strength” in “the wrong places” and warned they would “undoubtedly bring about negative consequences for themselves.”

Last week Kim Jong Un toured weapons research facilities, pledging to speed up both the country’s nuclear and conventional weapons programmes. On Monday, Pyongyang’s UN mission repeated that North Korea’s status as a nuclear-weapons state was “irreversible.”

Talks between Washington, Seoul and Pyongyang over denuclearisation have been frozen since Trump’s first term. In the meantime, North Korea has leaned harder into its ties with Moscow and Beijing.