South Korea and Japan have conducted a joint maritime search and rescue exercise (SAREX) for the first time in nine years. South Korean Navy today announced that the drill was conducted by the South Korean Navy and Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force in international waters southeast of Jeju Island.
Launched in 1999, the biennial SAREX exercise was designed to train procedures for coordinated responses between naval ships from both countries in the event of maritime incidents in waters near the Korean Peninsula. The drills had been suspended since the 10th round in 2017, as bilateral ties soured following a dispute over a Japanese maritime patrol aircraft making an unusually low-altitude flyby over a South Korean warship in December 2018.
