US-Japan-South Korea Coast Guard conducts first joint exercise

On May 17, US media quoted a Japanese government official as saying that the maritime security agencies of the US, Japan and South Korea will conduct joint exercises in the East Sea, near Kyoto and Fukui provinces of Japan on June 6.

The US Coast Guard, Japan Coast Guard and the Korea Coast Guard Agency will participate in the exercise, which will include search and rescue, telecommunications and interoperability enhancement.

It is expected that the US will deploy patrol ships and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to conduct exercises with forces of two Northeast Asian allies.

In addition to holding annual joint exercises, the three countries will step up support for maritime capacity building for Pacific and Southeast Asian island nations, and cooperate in enhancing Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) to deal with any situation that may arise at sea.

This is the first time the maritime security agencies of the three countries have conducted joint exercises at sea. Previously, Japan and South Korea have conducted search and rescue exercises since 2007.

At the US-Japan-South Korea Summit last August in the US, the three leaders agreed to launch a trilateral maritime security cooperation framework.

On May 10, the three maritime security agencies signed a Letter of Intent to strengthen the coordination system to ensure maritime security in the Asia-Pacific region and this time to organize a trilateral joint exercise.