South Korea says US cancelled upcoming joint marine exercises over Iran war 

South Korea says the United States has cancelled a large joint amphibious landing exercise scheduled for next month due to constraints on force availability caused by the US-Israel war on Iran.

“The US Marine Corps formally notified our forces in June that its ability to deploy forces during this year’s Ssangyong exercise would be constrained due to the situation in the Middle East,” Han Seung-jeon, a spokesman for the South Korean Marine Corps, told reporters at a news briefing on Monday.

The biennial Ssangyong drills involve marine forces from South Korea and the US and are designed to strengthen combined operations, typically involving warships, aircraft and ground forces rehearsing amphibious landings.

Seoul and Washington were continuing consultations on resuming the amphibious exercise, the spokesman said, without giving details.

There was no immediate comment from the Pentagon.

The announcement follows US President Donald Trump’s surprise order last week to scale back a separate annual joint military exercise that ended last Friday, citing the cost and Seoul’s refusal to take part in the war on Iran.

The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises were cut from 11 days to five.

Trump has also sought to revive the relationship he developed with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un during his first term.

He wrote on his Truth Social platform last week that the Ulchi Freedom Shield drills sent “a signal that was totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful”.

Despite the reduction of the exercises, North Korea fired 10 short-range ballistic missiles last week and issued a statement denouncing the drills.

North Korea has long condemned such joint exercises as rehearsals for invasion.

The US president also said last week that it was important to “get along” with Kim, adding that Pyongyang now had 57 “very powerful” nuclear weapons. Seoul estimates that North Korea has 80 to 120 such weapons.

Trump met Kim three times during his first term, but Pyongyang accelerated its nuclear programmes after their second summit in Hanoi in 2019 collapsed without an agreement on North Korea’s denuclearisation.