South Korea, the United States and Japan plan to hold talks among their military chiefs in February, an official here said Monday, in the aftermath of North Korea's fourth nuclear test earlier in the month.The three countries are pushing to hold a video conference next month among Gen. Lee Sun-jin, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and his American and Japanese counterparts -- Gen. Joseph Dunford and Adm. Katsutoshi Kawano -- a JCS spokesman said during a regular briefing.Details of t

The South Korean forces dispatched to the United Arab Emirates have conducted around 30 combined exercises with the local troops since the unit was first stationed in the Arab country five years ago as part of bilateral military exchanges, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Friday.South Korea sent the 150-strong "Ahk" unit to the UAE in January 2011 to train special forces and conduct joint military drills there. The 10th rotating troops are currently in service in the UAE. Since the deployment, the

The Navy's anti-piracy troops dispatched to the Somali coast have escorted an increasing number of nonmilitary vessels through the piracy-prone region following their successful mission to free a South Korean freighter taken hostage by Somali sea rovers in 2011."Since the Dawn of the Gulf of Aden operation, the number of vessels the Cheonghae Unit escorted in the sea near the Gulf of Aden has doubled," a military official said. Under the much-published operation, the 300-strong anti-piracy unit

South Korea officially kicked off its multibillion-dollar project Thursday to produce homemade fighter jets over the next decade.Under the Korean Fighter Experimental project by the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, contractor airplane maker Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd. will come up with six units of a homegrown prototype fighter by 2021.The test fighters will undergo flight tests for four years before the development project is completed by mid-2026, according to DAPA.Based on the

The U.S. THAAD missile defense system would provide South Korea with great protection against growing missile threats from North Korea, a U.S. think tank report said Wednesday.The Center for Strategic and International Studies made the suggestion in a report on the U.S. rebalance to Asia policy, saying the Asian nation "has no area defense capabilities against North Korean ballistic missiles."Chinese demarches have made a potential THAAD deployment a "sensitive issue" for Seoul, it said."The ROK

Defense officials and experts gathered here together Tuesday to gauge North Korea's nuclear capability following the communist country's recent nuclear test. Minister of National Defense Han Min-koo, Vice Minister of National Defense Hwang In-moo and 17 other defense and military officials held a workshop at the defense ministry with seven experts on North Korea, mostly from state-run research centers including the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.Technical assessment of the recent nuclear t

South Korea's arms procurement agency will concentrate efforts on upgrading the country's Patriot missiles and developing long-range ground-to-air missiles to counter North Korea's threats, its chief said Monday.North Korea declared that it successfully conducted a hydrogen bomb test on Jan. 6. The outside world suspects the test might have been based on a conventional atomic bomb, or a boosted fission bomb at best, but nevertheless the recent test showed the communist country is advancing its n

South Korea said Monday it will further limit access by its nationals to a joint industrial park in North Korea to ensure their safety following the North's claimed test of a hydrogen bomb last week.The Unification Ministry said that it plans to only permit entry by a "minimum" number of South Koreans to the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the North's border city of the same name. The move will be effective starting Tuesday.A total of 124 South Korean firms are running factories with about 54,000

The United States' B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber flew in the skies of South Korea on Sunday in a major show of force four days after North Korea conducted what it said was its first hydrogen bomb test.The B-52 bomber left U.S. Andersen Air Force Base in Guam on Sunday morning and arrived in the skies above Osan, Gyeonggi Province, at noon, armed with nuclear missiles and "bunker buster" bombs that are capable of bombarding North Korea's underground facilities, according to Seoul and Washi

Defense Minister Han Min-koo has instructed the military's missile command to retaliate "speedily and accurately" if North Korea makes any provocations in the aftermath of the communist country's recent nuclear test, the Ministry of National Defense said Sunday."If the enemy provokes, retaliate speedily and accurately without hesitation," Han told commanders of the Army's Missile Command during his field inspection on Saturday, according to the ministry.The visit was made as part of a series of