[05/September/2010]

Seoul, September 05 (Saba) - Anti-submarine drills South Korea and the United States planned to stage off the Korean Peninsula's west coast next week have been postponed due to an approaching typhoon, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, according to Qatar News Agency (QNA).

The five-day maneuvers had been scheduled to kick off on Sunday, the second in a series of joint exercises Seoul and Washington planned to stage in response to the March sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on North Korea, the Korean news agency (Yonhap) reported.

The JCS said in a statement that the drills have been put off as Typhoon Malou, which was located off the southern Japanese island of Okinawa Saturday, is expected to reach South Korea's western waters early next week. New dates for the exercises will be announced later, it said.

In May, a South Korea-led international probe officially pinpointed North Korea as the perpetrator of the torpedo attack on the 1,200-ton Cheonan warship that caused the loss of 46 sailors. The tense Yellow Sea border between the two Koreas is the site of the sinking.

The North has denied any role in the attack and threatened to wage a powerful strike against the drills.

In late July, South Korea and the U.S. held large-scale naval drills off the Peninsula's east coast, participated in by 20 ships, including the 97,000-ton aircraft carrier USS George Washington, 200 aircraft and 8,000 military personnel.


Saba