The U.S., Japan and South Korea will hold two days of missile tracking drills starting on Monday, Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force (SDF) said, as tensions rise in the region over North Korea’s fast-developing weapons programmes.
The U.S. and South Korea conducted large-scale military drills last week, which the North said made the outbreak of war “an established fact”. This week’s exercises will be the sixth drills sharing information in tracking ballistic missiles among the three nations, the SDF said.
Further, South Korea said it would impose new unilateral sanctions on 20 institutions and a dozen individuals in the North, barring any financial transactions between those sanctioned and any South Korean.
The move is largely symbolic as trade and financial exchanges between the two Koreas have been barred since May 2010 following the torpedoing of a South Korean warship, which the North denied.
