Anchor: South Korea and the U.S. are believed to have started a 15-day joint military exercise on Monday despite warnings from North Korea against doing so. The drills are expected to be a testing ground to verify the South Korean military's capabilities for retaking wartime operational control of its troops from the U.S.
Celina Yoon has more. 

Report: South Korea and the U.S. are believed to have begun their joint military drills on Monday, despite recent provocations from North Korea and threats that the exercises would affect denuclearization talks.

The computer-simulated command post exercise(CPX) will reportedly be held for about two weeks, and is designed to train U.S. and South Korean military personnel on how to handle emergency national security situations on the Korean Peninsula.

For national security reasons, the Defense Ministry declined to confirm whether the drills began on Monday, though it is widely assumed the exercises are underway.

Ministry spokesperson Choi Hyun-soo said in a briefing that the military is preparing for the exercises and that the name of the joint drills will be announced "when the opportunity arises." 

The joint drills will mobilize the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Army, Navy and Air Force from South Korea, as well as the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, U.S. Forces Korea and the U.S.' Indo-Pacific Command.

The two allies last held joint exercises in March. Those exercises, called 19-1 Dong Maeng, were a scaled down version of the former Key Resolve spring command-post drills and focused on defense rather than counterattack activities.

The August exercises come after repeated provocations from North Korea in recent months. The North has launched several short-range ballistic missiles(SRBM) into the East Sea and tested what it called a new strategic weapon.

North Korean state-media described two SRBMs launched July 25 as a “solemn warning” against "South Korean warmongers,” and Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry had earlier said the August exercises would affect denuclearization talks with Washington.

Regardless, the allies are moving forward with their exercises, and will examine the South Korean military's capability to retake wartime operational control of its troops from the U.S.
Celina Yoon, KBS World Radio News.