S. Korea, US, Japan hold missile defense drills after N. Korea's botched rocket launch

South Korea, the United States and Japan staged a trilateral missile defense exercise in the international waters south of the Korean Peninsula on Tuesday in response to North Korea's purported space rocket launch last week, officials said.

The exercise took place south of the southern island of Jeju after Pyongyang's attempt to launch its Chollima-1 rocket, carrying what it claimed to be a military reconnaissance satellite, was unsuccessful last Thursday, its second failure this year.

The latest drills featured three Aegis-equipped destroyers -- South Korea's ROKS Yulgok Yi I, the US' USS Benfold and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force's JS Haguro, according to South Korea's Navy.

The Navy said the exercise took place in response to North Korea's advancing nuclear and missile threats, including the North's rocket launch last week, which it described as a "clear" violation of UN Security Council resolutions banning the country from any launches using ballistic missile technology.

Under the scenario of a ballistic missile launch by North Korea, the exercise focused on practicing procedures to detect and track a computer-simulated target and share related information, it said.

The exercise also inspected their information sharing systems as part of efforts to operationalize a system to share North Korean missile warning data in real time among the three countries by the end of this year as reaffirmed by their leaders in a summit earlier this month.

On Aug. 18, President Yoon Suk Yeol, US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland, where they adopted a series of documents that outlined their commitments to enhance security and economic cooperation, such as holding annual trilateral exercises on a regular basis.

The three countries last held such a missile defense exercise in July. (Yonhap)