Asia
Turkey: Couple saved 296 hours after quake, but children die
A couple and their son were pulled alive from under a collapsed apartment building more than 12 days after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake ravaged parts of Turkey and Syria, although the child later died at a hospital, Turkish state media reported Saturday.
A foreign search team from Kyrgyzstan rescued Samir Muhammed Accar, 49, his wife, Ragda, 40, and their 12-year-old son while digging through the rubble of the apartment building in the southern Turkish city of Antakya, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.
They were removed at about 11:30 a.m. local time (8:30 GMT), or 296 hours after the Feb. 6 quake, and quickly transferred to ambulances. TV footage showing medics fixing an IV drip to the man’s arm as he lay on a stretcher.
One of the Kyrgyz rescuers said the team also found the bodies of two dead children. Anadolu later reported they also were the children of Samir Muhammad and Ragda Accar.
Also Read: Turkish teen filmed ‘last moments’ from quake-hit apartment
During a visit to Antakya, the capital of Hatay province, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said the father was conscious and being treated at Mustafa Kemal University Hospital. Anadolu published photos showing American TV personality and former U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz visiting the recovering man.
Reporting on their conversation, Anadolu said Samir Muhammed Accar described how he survived the ordeal by drinking his own urine. He also told Dr. Oz that his children responded to his voice for the first two or three days but he heard nothing from after that.
Hatay province, where Antakya is located, was one of areas hit hardest by the earthquake, which killed at least 40,642 people in Turkey and 3,688 in Syria.
Search and rescue operations are continuing in Turkey, although the head of the country’s disaster response agency said they would end on Sunday.
Turkish teen filmed ‘last moments’ from quake-hit apartment
A 17-year-old high school student has captured Turkish hearts after he filmed a farewell message to his loved ones as he was trapped under the rubble of his home during last week’s earthquake.
Taha Erdem and his family were fast asleep when a 7.8 magnitude quake hit their hometown of Adiyaman in the early hours of Feb. 6.
Taha was abruptly woken by violent tremors shaking the four-story apartment building in a blue-collar neighborhood of the central Anatolian city.
Within 10 seconds, Taha, his mother, father and younger brother and sister were plunging downward with the building.
He found himself alone and trapped under tons of rubble, with waves of powerful aftershocks shifting the debris, squeezing his space amid the mangled mess of concrete and twisted steel. Taha took out his cellphone and began recording a final goodbye, hoping it would be discovered after his death.
“I think this is the last video I will ever shoot for you,” he said from the tight space, his phone shaking in his hand as tremors rocked the collapsed building.
Showing remarkable resilience and bravery for a teenager believing he was speaking his last words, he lists his injuries and speaks of his regrets and the things he hopes to do if he emerges alive. During the video, the screams of other trapped people can be heard.
“We are still shaking. Death, my friends, comes at a time when one is least expecting it.” says Taha, before reciting a Muslim prayer in Arabic.
Also Read: Key developments in the aftermath of the Turkey, Syria quake
“There are many things that I regret. May God forgive me of all my sins. If I get out of here alive today there are many things that I want to do. We are still shaking, yes. My hand isn’t shaking, it’s just the earthquake.”
The teen goes on to recount that he believes his family are dead, along with many others in the city, and that he willsoon join them.
But Taha was destined to be among some of the first saved from the destroyed building. He was pulled from the rubble two hours later by neighbors and taken to an aunt’s home.
Ten hours after the quake, his parents and siblings were also saved by local residents who dug at the wreck of the building with their bare hands and whatever tools they could find.
When The Associated Press spoke to the family on Thursday they were living in a government-provided tent, along with hundreds of thousands of others who survived the disaster that hit southern Turkey and north Syria, killing more than 43,000.
Also Read: Turkey quake revives debate over nuclear plant being built
“This is my home,” said Taha’s mother Zeliha, 37, as she watched excavators digging up their old life and dumping it into heavy trucks.
“Boom-boom-boom, the building went down floor by floor on top of us,” she recalled, describing how she had kept yelling her son’s name while trapped under the debris in the hope that all five of them could die together as a family.
The Erdems’ younger children — daughter Semanur, 13, and 9-year-old son Yigit Cinar — were sleeping in their parents’ room when the quake hit.
But Taha could not hear his mother’s calls through the mass of concrete. Nor could she hear her son’s cries in the dark, and both believed the other was lying dead in the destroyed building.
It was only when Zeliha, her husband Ali, 47, a hospital cleaner, and the other children were taken to her sister’s home that they realized Taha had survived.
“The world was mine at that moment,” Zeliha said. “I have nothing, but I have my kids.”
The story of the Erdem family is one of many emotional tales of human fortitude to emerge from the widespread disaster area. Many vividly recount the horrors of being trapped beneath their homes.
Ibrahim Zakaria, a 23-year-old Syrian who was rescued in the coastal Syrian town of Jableh on Feb. 10, told the AP that he survived by licking water dripping down the wall next to him, slipping in and out of consciousness and losing hope of survival in his waking moments.
“I almost surrendered because I thought I will die,” he said from his hospital bed. “I thought: ‘There is no escape.’”
In the Turkish city of Gaziantep, 17-year-old Adnan Muhammed Korkut, was trapped for four days before he was rescued. He told the private IHA news agency that he grew so thirsty that he drank his own urine.
Muhammet Enes Yeninar, 17, and his 21-year-old brother were saved after 198 hours in nearby Kahramanmaras.
He said they cried for the first two days, mostly wondering about their mother and whether she had survived, IHA reported. They later began to comfort each other — “talking about brotherhood” and eating powdered protein.
Also in Kahramanmaras, Aleyna Olmez, 17, was pulled free after 248 hours under the rubble. “I tried to pass the time on my own,” she said.
Stories of remarkable survival often emerge during disaster, especially following earthquakes, when the world’s media records the fading hope of recovering survivors as each hour ticks by.
Following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, a 16-year-old girl was rescued in Port-Au-Prince 15 days after an earthquake devastated the city. Three years later, a woman trapped under a collapsed building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was saved after 17 days.
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Badendieck reported from Istanbul.
Key developments in the aftermath of the Turkey, Syria quake
Search and rescue teams have saved more survivors from the ruins of the Feb. 6 earthquake that devasted swaths of Turkey and Syria even as the window for finding people alive continues to shrink.
Here’s a look at the key developments Saturday from the aftermath of the earthquake.
THREE RESCUED IN HATAY
On the 13th day of rescue operations, three people, including a child, were extracted from under an apartment building in Antakya, the capital of Hatay province.
The man, woman and child were transferred to ambulances after spending 296 hours buried under the Kanatli apartment block in the center of the city, local TV reported. Footage showed medics fixing an IV drip to the man’s arm as he lay on a stretcher.
Also Read: Turkey quake revives debate over nuclear plant being built
Hatay is one of the worst hit of the 11 provinces in the Turkish disaster zone. On Friday evening, Turkey's death toll was 39,672, taking the number of recorded fatalities across both countries to 43,360.
MISSING GHANAIAN SOCCER PLAYER’S BODY FOUND
Search teams have recovered the body of Ghanaian international soccer player Christian Atsu in the ruins of a building that collapsed during the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria, his manager said Saturday.
The remains of the soccer star, who had been playing for Turkish Super Lig club Hatayspor, were found in what was left of a luxury 12-story building where he had been living in the hard-hit city of Antakya, Hatay province.
“Atsu’s lifeless body was found under the rubble. At the moment, his belongings are still being removed,” manager Murat Uzunmehmet told private news agency DHA.
The death toll from the 7.8-magnitude quake on Feb. 6 in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria passed 43,000 on Friday and was certain to increase as search teams find more bodies.
The 31-year-old Atsu, who previously played for English Premier League clubs Chelsea, Newcastle United, Everton and Bournemouth, signed for Hatayspor from a Saudi side late last year.
Hatayspor said Atsu’s body was being repatriated to Ghana. “There are no words to describe our sadness,” the club tweeted.
Reports a day after the quake struck had said that Atsu was pulled alive from the rubble of a collapsed building and taken to a hospital for treatment. The club, however, announced days later that Atsu and the club’s sporting director, Taner Savut, were still missing. Savut has not yet been found.
The contractor of the luxury 12-story Ronesans Rezidans building — where Atsu and Savut lived — was detained at Istanbul Airport a week ago, apparently trying to leave the country.
Russia to test new hypersonic missile in drills with China and South Africa
Russia, China and South Africa are set to begin naval drills off South Africa’s Indian Ocean coast Friday in a demonstration of the three countries’ close ties amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s tense relationship with the West.
The 10 days of exercises, named Mosi II, will coincide with the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
A Russian frigate, the Admiral Gorshkov, arrived in Cape Town earlier this week sporting the letters Z and V on its sides, letters that mark Russian weapons on the front lines in Ukraine and are used as a patriotic symbol in Russia.
In protest, a small yacht flying Ukraine’s flag sailed by the Russian frigate in Cape Town’s harbor. South African protesters opposed to the exercises are expected to demonstrate at the Russian Consulate in Cape Town on Friday.
The arrival of the Admiral Gorshkov has stirred considerable controversy because it is armed with the latest Zircon hypersonic missiles, a weapon that Russia says can penetrate any missile defenses to strike targets at sea and on land.
The warship is set to test-fire a Zircon missile during the joint naval drills, according to Russian state news agency Tass. The test will be the first launch of the missile in an international exercise.
In addition to the Admiral Gorshkov, other ships participating in the maritime exercises will include a Russian oil tanker for refueling, a South African frigate and three Chinese ships - a destroyer, a frigate and a support vessel, according to a South African military statement.
The joint naval exercises also come as China’s relations with Washington are tense after its balloon sailed across the U.S. and was eventually shot down by the U.S.
The maritime exercises will be staged from Durban and Richards Bay, ports in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province.
Media coverage of the drills has been restricted.
South Africa has faced domestic criticism for participating in the drills. The opposition Democratic Alliance said it shows South Africa is not neutral in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The South African National Defence Force has described the naval exercises with China and Russia simply as “a multinational maritime exercise.” The naval drills will “strengthen the already flourishing relations between South Africa, Russia and China” with the aim of sharing “operational skills and knowledge,” the military said in a statement.
At least 350 members of South Africa’s navy and other military branches are expected to participate in the exercise, the government has said.
The three countries previously held the Mosi I naval drills in Cape Town in 2019.
South Africa is among many African countries that have friendly relations with Moscow and abstained from voting on a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Russia and the United States have courted support from South Africa since the war in Ukraine started, indicating Pretoria’s influence as a strategic partner on the continent. The two super powers have vied for influence in Africa, sending top officials on diplomatic missions to the continent in recent months.
High-ranking U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, recently visited South Africa to deepen diplomatic, political and economic ties. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the White House in September 2022.
During a visit to South Africa last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized the West’s actions in support of Ukraine and emphasized Russia’s strong ties with South Africa and other nations on the continent.
S. Korea says N. Korea fires missile as allies ready drills
South Korea’s military said North Korea on Saturday fired one suspected long-range missile from its capital toward the sea, a day after it threatened to take strong measures against South Korea and the U.S. over their joint military exercises.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said the ballistic missile was fired at around 5:22 p.m. from an area in Sunan, the site of Pyongyang's international airport. It didn't immediately say where the weapon landed.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Friday threatened with "unprecedently" strong action against its rivals, after South Korea announced a series of planned military exercises with the United States aimed at sharpening their response to the North’s growing threats.
Toshiro Ino, Japan’s vice minister for defense, said the missile was expected have landed in waters within Japan’s exclusive economic zone, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Oshima island. Oshima lies off the western coast of the northernmost main island of Hokkaido.
“We are doing our utmost, working closely with the U.S., to gain information, analyze and take appropriate vigilance and surveillance measures to protect the lives and property of our people,” he told reporters.
The launch was North Korea’s first since Jan. 1, when it test-fired a short-range weapon. It followed a massive military parade in Pyongyang last week, where troops rolled out more than a dozen intercontinental ballistic missiles as leader Kim Jong Un watched in delight from a balcony.
The unprecedented number of missiles underscored a continuation of expansion of his country’s military capabilities despite limited resources while negotiations with Washington remain stalemated.
Those missiles included a new system experts say is possibly linked to the North’s stated desire to acquire a solid-fuel ICBM. North Korea’s existing ICBMs, including Hwasong-17s, use liquid propellants that require pre-launch injections and cannot remain fueled for prolonged periods. A solid-fuel alternative would take less time to prepare and is easier to move around on vehicles, providing less opportunity to be spotted.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Saturday’s launch involved a solid-fuel system.
“North Korean missile firings are often tests of technologies under development, and it will be notable if Pyongyang claims progress with a long-range solid-fuel missile,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. “The Kim regime may also tout this launch as a response to U.S. defense cooperation with South Korea and sanctions diplomacy at the United Nations.”
North Korea is coming off a record year in weapons demonstrations with more than 70 ballistic missiles fired, including ICBMs with potential range to reach the U.S. mainland. The North also conducted a slew of launches it described as simulated nuclear attacks against South Korean and U.S. targets in response to the allies’ resumption of large-scale joint military exercise that had been downsized for years.
North Korea’s missile tests have been punctuated by threats of preemptive nuclear attacks against South Korea or the United States over what it perceives as a broad range of scenarios that put its leadership under threat.
Kim doubled down on his nuclear push entering 2023, calling for an “exponential increase” in the country’s nuclear warheads, mass production of battlefield tactical nuclear weapons targeting “enemy” South Korea and the development of more advanced ICBMs.
The North Korean statement on Friday accused Washington and Seoul of planning more than 20 rounds of military drills this year, including large-scale field exercises, and described its rivals as “the arch-criminals deliberately disrupting regional peace and stability.”
The statement came hours after South Korea’s Defense Ministry officials told lawmakers that Seoul and Washington will hold an annual computer-simulated combined training in mid-March. The 11-day training would reflect North Korea’s nuclear threats, as well as unspecified lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war, according to Heo Tae-keun, South Korea’s deputy minister of national defense policy.
Heo said the two countries will also conduct joint field exercises in mid-March that would be bigger than those held in the past few years.
South Korea and the U.S. will also hold a one-day tabletop exercise next week at the Pentagon to sharpen a response to a potential use of nuclear weapons by North Korea.
The exercise, scheduled for Wednesday, would set up possible scenarios where North Korea uses nuclear weapons, explore how to cope with them militarily and formulate crisis management plans, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said.
North Korea has traditionally described U.S.-South Korea military exercises as rehearsals for a potential invasion, while the allies insist that their drills are defensive in nature.
The United States and South Korea had downsized or canceled some of their major drills in recent years, first to support the former Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts with Pyongyang and then because of COVID-19. But North Korea’s growing nuclear threats have raised the urgency for South Korea and Japan to strengthen their defense postures in line with their alliances with the United States.
South Korea has been seeking reassurances that United States will swiftly and decisively use its nuclear capabilities to protect its ally in face of a North Korean nuclear attack. In addition to expanding and evolving military exercises with South Korea, the United States has also expressed commitment to increase its deployment of strategic military assets like fighter jets and aircraft carriers to the Korean Peninsula in a show of strength.
In December, Japan made a major break from its strictly self-defense-only post-World War II principle, adopting a new national security strategy that includes preemptive strikes and cruise missiles to counter growing threats from North Korea, China and Russia.
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Associated Press writer Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo contributed to the report.
Turkey quake revives debate over nuclear plant being built
A devastating earthquake that toppled buildings across parts of Turkey and neighboring Syria has revived a longstanding debate locally and in neighboring Cyprus about a large nuclear power station being built on Turkey’s southern Mediterranean coastline.
The plant’s site in Akkuyu, located some 210 miles (338 kilometers) to the west of the epicenter of the Feb. 6 quake, is being designed to endure powerful tremors and did not sustain any damage or experience powerful ground shaking from the 7.8 magnitude earthquake and aftershocks.
But the size of the quake — the deadliest in Turkey’s modern history — sharpened existing concerns about the facility being built on the edge of a major fault line.
Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned company in charge of the project, says the power station is designed to “withstand extreme external influences” from a magnitude 9 earthquake. In nuclear power plant construction, plants are designed to survive shaking that is more extreme than what’s been previously recorded in the area they’re sited.
The possibility of a magnitude 9 earthquake occurring in the vicinity of the Akkuyu reactor “is approximately once every 10,000 years,” Rosatom told The Associated Press via email last week. “That is exactly how the margin of safety concept is being implemented.”
An official with Turkey’s Energy Ministry, when contacted by the AP, said there were no immediate plans to reassess the project. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government protocol. Some activists, however, still say the project — the first nuclear power plant in Turkey — poses a threat.
Nuclear facilities are constructed of heavily reinforced concrete, sized for significant earthquake shaking and far more robust than commercial buildings, said Andrew Whittaker, a professor of civil engineering at the University at Buffalo who is an expert in earthquake engineering and nuclear structures.
The fact that it’s sited off the western end of the East Anatolian Fault, which was linked to last week’s powerful tremor, suggests that the design would have been checked for significant shaking, Whittaker added.
Still, Whittaker said, it would be prudent to reassess seismic hazard calculations in the region for all infrastructure, including the plant.
“There’s no reason to be concerned, but there’s always a reason to be cautious,” he said.
That’s little comfort to activists in Turkey and on both sides of ethnically divided Cyprus. They’ve renewed their calls for the project to be scrapped, saying that the devastating earthquake is clear proof of the great risk posed by a nuclear power plant near seismic fault lines.
In a statement to the AP, the Cyprus Anti-Nuclear platform, a coalition of over 50 Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot environmentalist groups, trade unions and political parties, said it “calls on all political parties, scientific and environmental organizations and the civil society to join efforts and put pressure on the Turkish government to terminate its plans for the Akkuyu nuclear power plant.”
Cypriot European Parliament member Demetris Papadakis asked the European Commission what immediate actions it intends to take to halt the plant because of the dangers posed by building a nuclear power station in a seismic zone so close to Cyprus.
Nuclear power plants worldwide are designed to withstand earthquakes and shut down safely in the event of major earth movement — about 20% of nuclear reactors are operating in areas of significant seismic activity, according to the World Nuclear Association.
For example, Japanese nuclear plants, including the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant, are in regions where earthquakes of up to magnitude 8.5 may be expected, the association said. Stricter safety standards were adopted after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, when a tsunami crashed into the Daichi plant, melting three reactors and releasing dangerous levels of radiation. And the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California was designed to safely withstand earthquakes, tsunamis and flooding that could potentially occur in the region too, according to its operator.
Turkish nuclear regulators provided the license for the plant’s construction in Akkuyu in 1976 following eight years of seismic studies to determine the most suitable location, but the project was slowed down after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. Construction of the first reactor started in 2018. Large nuclear power plants have traditionally taken a while to build because of the size, scale and complexity of the infrastructure, and delays associated with first-of-a-kind plants.
According to Rosatom, a study by Turkey’s Office for the Prevention and Elimination of Consequences of Emergency Situations indicates that the site in Akkuyu – some 60 miles (95 kilometers) from Cyprus’ northern coastline – is located in the fifth degree earthquake zone, which is considered the safest region in terms of earthquakes.
The plant design includes an external reinforced concrete wall and internal protective shell made of “prestressed concrete,” with metal cables stretched inside the concrete shell to give additional solidity to the structure, the company said. And the modern reactor design, Russia’s VVER-1200, includes an additional safety feature — a 144 ton steel cone called the “core catcher” that in an emergency, traps and cools any molten radioactive materials, Rosatom added.
The company emphasized that power units with VVER-1200 reactors comply with the post-Fukushima requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
There’s a political dimension to qualms about the plant: Cyprus has accused Turkey of augmenting the Turkish Cypriots’ dependence on it in order to entrench the island’s ethnic division. Turkey has said it would supply the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north of the island with electricity through an undersea cable. A pipeline suspended a couple of hundred meters under the Mediterranean’s surface is already supplying the north with water.
The plant, whose first of four reactors is scheduled to go online later this year, will have a total capacity of 4,800 megawatts of electricity, providing about 10% of Turkey’s electricity needs. According to government figures, if the power plant started operating today, it could singlehandedly provide enough electricity for a city of about 15 million people, such as Istanbul, Rosatom added.
It’s estimated to cost $20 billion. Rosatom has a 99.2% stake in the project, and is contracted to build, maintain, operate and decommission the plant.
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McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Suzan Fraser, in Ankara, Turkey, contributed.
Together for Turkiye
The event – Together for Turkiye – was hosted by Agile Minds Corporation in collaboration with
· The Turkish Embassy in Bangladesh
· TIKA (Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency)
· AFAD (an on-the-ground Turkish NGO which will help with logistical and installation aspects)
· The Earth Identity Project - NGO no. 1969 (which will help with local fund collection)
· THRIVE (a US-registered NGO that will, in due course, provide food packages for the earthquake victims)
Read More: Banglalink donates relief items for Turkey earthquake victims
Mishal Karim, Chairman of Agile Minds Corporation, started his speech with a quote by Mahatma Gandhi, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
He then stated, “Our initiative will attempt to deliver a functional field hospital with all the required elements: 2 Air Domes - each 4,380 Square Feet, with a connecting channel of 459 Square Feet. The 2 Air Domes come with a 30KW Generator required for their operations. Furthermore, we are arranging for the donation of Sleeping bags, Battery-powered Heaters, Power banks, and Tent mats.”
N. Korea threatens unprecedented response to South-US drill
North Korea threatened Friday to take “unprecedently” strong action against its rivals, soon after South Korea announced a series of planned military drills with the United States to hone their joint response to the North’s increasing nuclear threats.
North Korea has halted weapons testing activities since its short-range missile firing on Jan. 1, though it launched more than 70 missiles in 2022 — a record number for a single year. Friday’s warning suggests the North's testing could resume soon over its rivals’ military training, which it views as an invasion rehearsal.
“In case the U.S. and South Korea carry into practice their already announced plan for military drills that (North Korea), with just apprehension and reason, regards as preparations for an aggression war, they will face unprecedentedly persistent and strong counteractions,” the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by state media.
The statement accused South Korea and the United States of planning more than 20 rounds of military drills, including their largest-ever field exercises. It called South Korea and the United States “the arch-criminals deliberately disrupting” regional peace and stability.
“This predicts that the situation in the Korean Peninsula and the region will be again plunged into the grave vortex of escalating tension,” the statement said.
It didn’t specify which U.S.-South Korean military trainings it was referring to. But North Korea has typically slammed all major regular military drills between Washington and Seoul as a practice to launch an invasion and responded with its own weapons tests.
Some experts say North Korea has used various South Korea-U.S. drills as a chance to test and perfect its weapons systems. They say North Korea would eventually aim to use its enlarged nuclear arsenal to win international recognition as a legitimate nuclear state and win sanctions relief and other concessions.
Read more: S. Korea, US to hold simulated drill on North use of nukes
Seoul and Washington have said their training is defensive in nature.
Earlier Friday, Heo Tae-keun, South Korea’s deputy minister of national defense policy, told lawmakers that Seoul and Washington will hold an annual computer-simulated combined training in mid-March. Heo said the 11-day training would reflect North Korea’s nuclear threats, as well as unspecified lessons from the Russia-Ukraine War.
Heo said the two countries will also conduct joint field exercises in mid-March that would be bigger than those held in the past few years.
The allies had downsized or canceled some of their regular drills in recent years to guard against the COVID-19 pandemic and support now-dormant diplomacy on North Korea’s nuclear program.
Earlier Friday, Seoul officials said that South Korea and the U.S. will hold a one-day tabletop exercise next week at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, to sharpen a response to a potential use of nuclear weapons by North Korea. The exercise, scheduled for Wednesday, would set up possible scenarios where North Korea uses nuclear weapons, explore how to cope with them militarily and formulate crisis management plans, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Seoul's security concerns about North Korea’s nuclear program deepened after Pyongyang last year adopted a law that authorizes the preemptive use of nuclear weapons, and tested nuclear-capable missiles that put South Korea within striking distance.
In response to the intensifying North Korean threats, South Korea and the United States have expanded their joint military drills and stepped up pressure on the North to abandon its nuclear program. In January, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the U.S. would also increase its deployment of advanced weapons such as fighter jets and bombers to the Korean Peninsula.
During their annual meeting in November, Austin and South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-Sup agreed to conduct tabletop exercises annually and further strengthen the alliance’s information sharing, joint planning and execution. Austin reiterated a warning that any nuclear attack against the U.S. or its allies would result in the end of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's regime.
S. Korea, US to hold simulated drill on North use of nukes
South Korean and United States militaries will hold a tabletop exercise at the Pentagon next week to hone their joint response to a potential use of nuclear weapons by North Korea, Seoul officials said Friday.
The one-day computer simulation set for Wednesday comes as the two countries push to strengthen their 70-year alliance in the face of North Korea’s increasingly aggressive nuclear doctrine.
The exercise is meant to focus on measures against North Korean nuclear threats and discuss how to boost a U.S. extended deterrence — America's ability to use its full capabilities, including nuclear, to deter attacks on its allies, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
It said the exercise would set up possible scenarios where North Korea uses nuclear weapons, explore how to cope with them militarily and formulate crisis management plans.
Worries about North Korea’s nuclear program deepened in South Korea after the North conducted a record number of missile tests in 2022 and adopted a law that authorizes the preemptive use of nuclear weapons. Many of the missiles tested were nuclear-capable weapons that place South Korea within striking distance.
In response to the intensifying North Korean threats, South Korea and U.S. militaries have expanded their joint drills and stepped up pressure on the North to abandon its nuclear program. In January, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the U.S. would also increase its deployment of advanced weapons such as fighter jets and bombers to the Korean Peninsula.
During their annual meeting in November, Austin and South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-Sup also agreed to conduct tabletop exercises annually and further strengthen the alliance’s information sharing, joint planning and execution. Austin reiterated a warning that any nuclear attack against the U.S. or its allies would result in the end of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's regime.
North Korea has previously slammed military drills between its rivals as an invasion rehearsal and responded with its own weapons tests, and could make an angry response to next week’s South Korea-U.S. tabletop exercise.
Some experts say North Korea has used some of the South Korea-U.S. drills as a chance to test and perfect its weapons systems. They say North Korea would eventually aim to use its enlarged nuclear arsenal to win international recognition as a legitimate nuclear state and win sanctions relief and other concessions.
Taiwan reports Chinese balloon found on northern island
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry says a Chinese weather balloon landed on one of its outlying islands, amid U.S. accusations that such craft have been dispatched worldwide to spy on Washington and its allies.
The ministry’s statement on Thursday said the balloon carried equipment registered to a state-owned electronics company in the northern city of Taiyuan.
The islet where it was found, Tungyin, is part of the Matsu island ground lying just off the coast of China’s Fujian province.
Taiwan maintained control of the islands after the sides split in 1949 amid civil war and they are considered a first line of defense should China make good on its threats to bring Taiwan under its control by force if necessary.
Calls and messages sent to the company identified in the report, Taiyuan Wireless (Radio) First Factory Ltd., went unanswered. Information on the equipment was written in the simplified Chinese characters used on the mainland rather than the traditional on Taiwan, the ministry said.
China regularly sends military aircraft and warships into Taiwan air identification zone and across the middle line of the Taiwan Strait. That has prompted Taiwan to boost military purchases from the U.S., expand domestic production of local planes, submarines and fighting ships, and extend compulsory military service for all males.
Washington is Taiwan's closest military and diplomatic ally, despite a lack of formal ties, which were cut in 1979. Beijing protests strongly over all contacts between the island and the U.S., but its aggressive diplomacy has helped build strong bipartisan support for Taipei on Capitol Hill.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden said the U.S. is developing “sharper rules” to track, monitor and potentially shoot down unknown aerial objects, following three weeks of high-stakes drama sparked by the discovery of a suspected Chinese spy balloon transiting much of the country.
Biden has directed national security adviser Jake Sullivan to lead an “interagency team” to review U.S. procedures after the U.S. shot down the Chinese balloon, as well as three other objects that Biden said the U.S. now believes were most likely “benign” objects launched by private companies or research institutions.
While not expressing regret for downing the three still-unidentified objects, Biden said he hoped the new rules would help “distinguish between those that are likely to pose safety and security risks that necessitate action and those that do not.”