<Anchor>



A naval exercise in which the British Queen Elizabeth Carrier Group and the Korean Navy's largest ship, the Dokdo, participate, will be held in the East Sea for the first time in four years. The US Marine Corps fighter and US ships are also scheduled to participate, so it is expected to be a large-scale joint South Korea-U.S.-UK joint exercise.



This is Kim Tae-hoon, a defense reporter specializing in defense.



<Reporter> The



Queen Elizabeth Carrier Squadron, which departed from the UK in May, went through the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia, and is currently staying in the high seas south of Japan.



U.S. ships also joined the carrier squadron, and 10 out of 18 vertical takeoff and landing stealth aircraft F-35Bs belong to the U.S. Marine Corps, so it is effectively a combined British and U.S. fleet.



The Ministry of National Defense announced that it will conduct maritime exercises with the Queen Elizabeth Carrier Group in the East Sea for three days starting the day after tomorrow.



The ROK Navy deploys destroyers and maritime operation helicopters, starting with the large transport ship Dokdo.



This is the first joint exercise in our operation area with a foreign carrier group in four years since November 2017.



Although the Ministry of National Defense calls the training focused on humanitarian aid and disaster relief, the training pattern is expected to vary given the large scale of the participating forces.



[Shin Jong-woo / Senior Analyst, Korea Defense Security Forum: In the Asia-Pacific region, joint maritime exercises of multinational forces are expanding. It can be seen as a training that embodies the goal of restoring the alliance, which was emphasized when the Biden administration took office.]



Four days after the end of the ROK-US joint exercise, a large-scale multinational joint maritime exercise is taking place in our waters, so it is also noteworthy whether North Korea will react.



North Korea fired cruise missiles and new guided missiles right after the South Korea-US exercise in the first half of this year.



The military is closely monitoring the possibility of further missile test launches by North Korea.



(Video coverage: Il-Sang Han, Video editing: Seung-Jin Lee)