The alliance will announce a decision by December 1.
On Wednesday, U. S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis told reporters that the upcoming U. S.-South Korea Foal Eagle military exercises, scheduled for spring 2019, would be scaled back to allow ongoing U. S. and South Korean diplomacy with North Korea to continue uninterrupted.
“Foal Eagle is being reorganized a bit to keep it at a level that will not be harmful to diplomacy,” Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon in Washington, D. C. Mattis did not clarify how exactly the exercises would be scaled back, but his decision implies that the alliance would not suspend the drills altogether.
North Korea and the United States are working toward a second leaders’ level summit meeting between U. S. President Donald J. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The summit is slated to take place some time in the spring.
The alliance is expected to announce a decision by the end of the month on the specific modifications to the exercises.
Following their meeting at the 50th annual U. S.-South Korea Security Consultative Meeting at the end of October, South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo had said that the alliance would take a decision on the scope of the exercises by December 1.
