South Korea, US to suspend ‘large-scale’ military exercises: report

The U.S. and South Korea are expected to announce they will suspend “large-scale” military exercises this week, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported on Sunday.

The suspension would only hold if North Korea cooperates in its promise to work toward denuclearization, Yonhap reported, according to Reuters. It will only apply to major joint exercises and not routine military training, an unnamed government source told Yonhap.

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Last week, President Trump in a surprise announcement agreed to end “war games” with South Korea during his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Seoul said it had not received guidance on stopping the drills and didn’t know which exercises Trump was referring to.

But on Thursday South Korean President Moon Jae-in said that his government needs to be more flexible about military pressure on North Korea, according to Reuters.

South Korea also asked Pyongyang on Sunday to relocate its artillery away from the line of demarcation separating both nations, Yonhap reported. The news agency also reported that South Korea’s defense ministry denied it made such a request.

Trump also said on Sunday that he was the one who requested at the summit that the “war games” be held back because they were “very expensive and set a bad light during a good faith negotiation.”