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WASHINGTON – US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said the United States and South Korea would cut a major military exercise next spring to avoid questioning Korea's nuclear weapons diplomacy. North.
Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon Wednesday that the exercise, called Foal Eagle and which takes place each spring in South Korea, will have "reduced scope". The decision had not been announced before.
He did not provide details, but the decision is an extension of Washington and Seoul's efforts to encourage progress in the stalled negotiations on the northern nuclear program.
According to Mattis, next spring's exercise will be reduced to a level that "will not be detrimental to diplomacy". North Korea is strongly opposed to large-scale military exercises between the United States and South Korea.
