South Korean and U.S. marines have agreed to expand their joint exercises and regularize drills off western border islands near the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the defense ministry in Seoul said Thursday.
South Korea's marine chief Lt. Gen. Lee Ho-yeon and Maj. Gen. Michael R. Regner, the head of U.S. marines based here, agreed at a meeting in Seoul to hold a large-scale joint maneuver early this year involving their brigade-level units.
The ministry said the planned exercise, which will combine landing exercises that had been held separately by the allies, will be the largest-ever in 23 years.
The commanders also discussed expanding joint exercises overseas by dispatching battalion-level units to the Exercise Cobra Gold, a U.S.-led joint training event to be held next month in Thailand.
Lee and Regner also agreed to regularize joint drills near South Korean islands near a tense sea border with the DPRK in an effort to "bolster defense readiness and attain strategic deterrence," the ministry said in a statement.
South Korean and U.S. marines held their first such exercise on front-line islands last year, a response to the DPRK's 2010 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island.