The US and South Korea said they will end their annual large-scale joint military exercises as Washington pursues efforts to improve ties with North Korea.
The decision comes days after the conclusion of US President Donald Trump's second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Hanoi, which ended without a formal agreement but with both sides suggesting they would keep talking.
During a Saturday phone call between South Korean Defence Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo and his US counterpart Patrick Shanahan, "both sides decided to conclude the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle series of exercises," according to a Pentagon statement.
The two allies will instead carry out "adjusted outside manoeuvre trainings and united command exercises to continue firm military readiness", Seoul's defence ministry said Sunday.
Foal Eagle is the biggest of the regular joint exercises held by the allies, and has always infuriated Pyongyang, which condemned it as preparations for invasion.
In the past, it has involved 200,000 South Korean forces and some 30,000 US soldiers.
It is accompanied by Key Resolve, a computer-simulated war game conducted by military commanders which usually begins in March and runs for about 10 days.
The second meeting between Trump and Kim in Vietnam was cut short after they failed to reach a deal on the extent of sanctions relief North Korea would get in exchange for steps to give up its nuclear program.
"North Korea has an incredible, brilliant economic future if they make a deal, but they don't have any economic future if they have nuclear weapons," Trump said at a Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday.
He added that the relationship with North Korea seemed to be "very, very strong".
The US and North Korea have said they intend to continue talks, but have not said when a next round might take place.
Some have credited Trump for refusing to be drawn into a bad deal, but he was criticised for earlier praising Kim's leadership and saying he accepted his assertion that he had not been aware of how an American student who died after 17 months in a North Korean prison had been treated.
The collapse of the summit leaves Kim in possession of what analysts say could be an arsenal of 20 to 60 nuclear warheads, which, if fitted to its intercontinental ballistic missiles, could threaten the US mainland.
North Korea says it offered to dismantle all its nuclear production but the US rejected it. (AAP) Source: AAP
The United Nations and the US ratcheted up sanctions on North Korea when it conducted repeated nuclear and ballistic missile tests in 2017.
Washington has demanded North Korea's complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation before sanctions can be lifted, a position Pyongyang has denounced as "gangster-like".
