Korea, France to hold first ever joint air exercise as early as next month

Defense

Published: 25 Jun. 2023, 16:34 Updated: 25 Jun. 2023, 17:03

Korea, France to hold first ever joint air exercise as early as next month

Dassault Rafale multirole fighters, such as this one flying at the Paris Air Show on June 19, are expected to visit Korea for the first Korean-French joint air exercise at the end of next month. [AP/YONHAP]

Korea and France will hold their first-ever joint air exercise as early as the end of July, according to the French defense ministry.

The exercise is scheduled to take place during the French overseas military mission Pégase 2023, which will see a French Air and Space Force contingent deployed to the Middle East, Southeast Asia and the western Pacific from June 25 to Aug. 3 to participate in exercises with various partner nations, including Korea.

The contingent, which will include 19 warplanes consisting of 10 Dassault Rafale B and C multirole fighters, five A330 MRTT refueling aircraft and four Airbus A400M transport planes, is intended to demonstrate French power projection capabilities, according to the French defense ministry’s press release.

Emphasizing that France “is a resident sovereign nation in the Indo-Pacific,” the ministry said that the country “ensures its sovereignty and the protection of its territories in the region” with both locally stationed forces and also “by regular power projections” with the cooperation of “several partner nations in the region.”

While the specific timing of the Pégase 2023 contingent's arrival in Korea was not provided by the ministry, it is expected to take place toward the end of the mission, according to the press release.

The Pégase 2023 contingent departed from France on Sunday.

It is scheduled to make its first stop at Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates before splitting into two groups and heading toward Malaysia and Singapore.

After departing the two Southeast Asian countries on Wednesday, the two groups are due to take part in large-scale multinational exercises in Guam and Palau led by the U.S. military from July 2 to 21, where they are expected to be joined by French forces permanently stationed in the French overseas territories of New Caledonia and French Polynesia.

Following the end of those exercises, the Pégase 2023 contingent will make a series of “valued stopovers” from July 24 to August 3 in Korea, Japan and Indonesia before returning to France via Qatar and Djibouti, according to the press release, which said that “each stopover will be the subject of joint training with the partner air forces.”

The mission underlines France’s commitment to regional stability and is intended to signal “a non-escalatory posture in an approach based on respect for international law and freedom of movement,” the ministry said.

The upcoming joint exercise between the visiting French Air and Space Force contingent and the Korean Air Force follows a port call by the French Navy frigate Prairial in April.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, who paid a visit to Korea at the same time as the French frigate, said that France is “determined to deepen [its] commitment to preserving peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region as part of our Indo-Pacific strategy adopted in 2018 in collaboration with our strategic partners.”

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]