U.S., South Korea downsize military drills

The United States and South Korea on Sunday said they will scale back their annual joint military drills in a diplomatic concession to North Korea following last week’s failed summit. The defense chiefs from both countries agreed to replace the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle drills with smaller, revised field training programs and command post exercises, the Pentagon said in a statement. The two countries said the decision “reflected our desire to reduce tension and support our diplomatic efforts to achieve complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a final, fully verified manner.” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un repeatedly called the joint drills an invasion rehearsal.

Last week, Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump left their second summit in Vietnam without an agreement. Trump said financial costs were the primary reason for shrinking the drills but added that “reducing tensions with North Korea at this time is a good thing.”

White House national security adviser John Bolton on Sunday attempted to clarify Trump’s statement that he believed Kim was unaware of Otto Warmbier’s mistreatment. Warmbier, an American college student, died in 2017 after being detained in North Korea and returned home in a vegetative state. Warmbier’s parents criticized Trump’s acceptance of Kim’s explanation. “It doesn’t mean that he accepts it as reality,” Bolton said. “It means that he accepts that’s what Kim Jong Un said.”