About 20,000 South Korean and US troops launched a 12-day joint
military exercise on Monday in South Korea, the Defense Ministry
announced.
Except for South Korean troops and the US troops stationing in
South Korea, a small number of US soldiers from US military bases
in Guam, Japan and other areas also joined the annual drill, dubbed
as the "Ulchi Focus Lens", the South Korean Defense Ministry
said.
South Korea and the United States began to conduct the "Ulchi
Focus Lens" military exercises since 1975. The drill consists
mostly of computer-simulated war games to evaluate and improve
combined and joint procedures, plans and systems used in the event
of conflict on the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea is strongly against the exercise.
About 30,000 US troops are currently stationed in South
Korea.
(Xinhua News Agency August 21, 2006)
