The combined military drills between South Korea and the U.S. were halted in June as a gesture of good faith to North Korea after it agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons.
Well now, with little progress made on that front,... the U.S. has opened the door to restarting the exercises Pyongyang dreads.
However, Seoul claims to have heard nothing of the possible resumption,... adding it's a subject that needs to be discussed between the allies.
Park Hee-jun reports. South Korea's presidential office says the issue of suspending joint military exercises with the United States requires further discussion between the two countries.

This comes after U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis said at a news conference at the Pentagon on Tuesday, local time,... that the U.S. has no future plans to call off any drills with South Korea.

"We have no plans at this time to suspend any more exercises. We will work very closely, as I said, with the Secretary of State, and what he needs done we will certainly do to reinforce that effort. But at this time there is no discussion about further suspensions."

Earlier in June after the Kim-Trump summit in Singapore,... Mattis announced that the U.S. had "suspended" the exercises "indefinitely."
As a result,... the annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise was cancelled in August.

Just hours after Mattis made his latest remarks,... Blue House Spokesperson Kim Eui-kyeom told reporters that South Korea and U.S. had not discussed the matter.
Although the earlier decision only applied to this year's exercises,... he said that any changes in the agreement will be negotiated in step with the progress made in denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington.

South Korea's foreign ministry says it sees the comments as an extension of Washington's previous agreement with Seoul to suspend the joint exercises, and that no new agreement has been made.
It added that it will continue to work closely with the U.S. for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Seoul's defense ministry also says that it had heard nothing of Mattis' announcement,... and that the issue has not yet been discussed by the two sides.

Park Hee-jun, Arirang News.