Japan, South Korea and U.S. hold first trilateral missile defense drills since 2017

Ties between Tokyo and Seoul are showing signs of improvement, albeit in incremental steps, with the two countries holding a rare trilateral missile defense drill with the U.S. a day after South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol spoke of the need to “swiftly” repair the bilateral relationship.

The three countries’ navies held the drill from Aug. 8 through Sunday during the multinational Pacific Dragon exercise off the coast of the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii, with the participants sharing “tactical data link information in accordance with a trilateral information sharing agreement,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement Tuesday.