Article Posted on : - Sep 03, 2010

A file photo

SEOUL (AP): South Korea and the United States will hold joint anti-submarine exercises in another show of force against North Korea, officials said Friday, as Pyongyang renewed threats against the drills.

The exercises will be the second in a series of joint maneuvers the allies planned to conduct in response to the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship in March that they blame on the North.

The two sides staged large-scale joint naval drills in July followed by South Korea's own naval drills last month.

The drills, set to run from Sunday through Thursday off the Korean peninsula's west coast, will involve about 17,000 US and South Korean troops, seven ships and two submarines as well as aircraft, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff and the US military in Seoul.

The exercises are "designed to send a clear message of deterrence to North Korea, while improving overall alliance anti-submarine warfare capabilities," the US military in Seoul said in a statement.

The announcement of the planned drills comes as China reportedly holds live-ammunition exercises in the Yellow Sea.

China's official Xinhua News Agency on Sunday cited the defense ministry as saying that the Beihai Fleet of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy would be conducting exercises from Wednesday to Saturday in the sea off the southeast coast of the city of Qingdao.

An international team of investigators concluded in May that a North Korean torpedo sank the 1,200-ton South Korean warship Cheonan in late March near the Koreas' western maritime border, killing 46 South Korean sailors.