Anchor: South Korea and the United States on Tuesday kicked off their annual summertime combined military exercise, though scaled back amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The two sides will hold the computer-simulated Combined Command Post Training(CCPT) through next Friday. North Korea has indirectly expressed displeasure with the joint drill.
Park Jong-hong has the details.

Report: The computer-simulated drill is the first major joint drill this year as the spring exercise was called off at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Officials said that the first part of the two-part CCPT exercise focuses on defending the South against a hypothetical invasion by North Korea. 

The second part, set for next Monday to Friday, is a simulated counterattack in response.

Last week, the allies carried out the Crisis Management Staff Training program for four days as a prelude to the main joint drills. 

Initially set to start on Sunday, the start of the exercise was pushed back to Tuesday after a South Korean Army officer assigned to the drill tested positive for COVID-19. 

The planned exercise will be much smaller in scale compared to previous drills and will be held only during the daytime as coronavirus-related restrictions prevented the necessary U.S. troops from coming to Korea.

Due to the smaller scope, Seoul and Washington are unable to fully conduct the planned Full Operational Capability(FOC) test, a crucial appraisal intended to verify if Seoul is on track to take over wartime operational control of allied forces from the U.S.

Experts say the envisioned transfer is unlikely to take place during the Moon Jae-in administration, whose term ends in May 2022.

Though North Korea's state media has yet to issue an official statement on the drills, an article in a propaganda weekly expressed Pyongyang's unhappiness by quoting South Korean civic groups critical of the joint exercise.
Park Jong-hong, KBS World Radio News