Foal Eagle 2016 Exercise Concludes In South Korea

I guess we will see whether the conclusion of Foal Eagle will lead to a reduction in provocations from North Korea in the coming weeks:

South Korea and the United States are set to end their two monthlong joint military exercises this week, but tensions are expected to go up further as North Korea is seen as preparing for another nuclear test, officials said Friday.

“The Foal Eagle exercise will officially wrap up its schedule tomorrow although its outdoor training programs are all to end today,” a military official said.

The last day of the exercise on Saturday will be assigned to breaking up camps and withdrawing assembled military assets and troops, the official noted.

The allies had kicked off the annual field exercise on March 7, along with the Key Resolve command post exercise, which ran for two weeks.

This year’s exercises were the biggest of their kinds, having come on the heels of North Korea’s provocative nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February.

The two exercises brought together some 300,000 South Korean armed forces and 17,000 U.S. forces, along with the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-propelled aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) and two Wasp-class amphibious assault vessels: the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) and the USS Boxer (LHD-4).  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.