US, S Korea plan more naval drills this month

The United States and South Korea are planning more joint naval drills as early as this month, South Korea's military said today as the two sides wrapped up four days of Yellow Sea manoeuvres.

South Korea and the United States were discussing holding a joint naval exercise this month or in early 2011, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

"Discussions are still under way on when and where the drill would take place and on what scale," the JCS spokesman said

The current war games ending Wednesday were intended as a show of force after North Korea's hardline communist regime launched a deadly attack on a South Korean island last week.

The joint naval exercise involving a US carrier battle fleet started Sunday after the North's artillery attack on the South's Yeonpyeong Island near the tense sea border.

Two civilians and two marines were killed in the North Korean shelling on November 23 near the disputed maritime border that has been a scene of several naval clashes between the two Koreas over the years.