South Korea’s F-35 fighter jets on display as Moon Jae-in embraces show of strength
- South Korean fighter jets conducted patrol flights offshore, including over islands at the centre of a bitter territorial dispute with Japan
- North Korea has criticised the South’s weapons procurements and its joint military drills with the US military as undisguised preparations for war
South Korea on Tuesday displayed some of its newly purchased US-made F-35 stealth fighter jets for the first time during its Armed Forces Day ceremony, a development that will likely infuriate rival North Korea.
Under its biggest ever weapons purchase, South Korea is to buy 40 F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin by 2021. The first few batches of the aircraft arrived in the South this year.
North Korea has criticised the South’s weapons procurements and its joint military drills with the US military as undisguised preparations for war that violate recent inter-Korean agreements aimed at lowering military tensions and force it to develop new short-range missiles.
At the event marking the founding of the South Korean military at a ceremony at an airbase in the city of Daegu, Moon watched as four of the eight Lockheed Martin F-35A jets delivered this year were displayed.
The South Korean president has thrown his support behind dialogue to end the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, urging that working-level negotiations between the North and the US be held soon. No new dates or locations have been set.
During Moon’s third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang last September, the two Koreas struck a set of agreements meant to ease military animosities such as halting frontline live-fire exercises and dismantling guard posts along their border. Many conservatives in South Korea have said the deals greatly undermined South Korea’s national security because North Korea’s nuclear threats remain intact.