The military exercises with South Korea and the United States require months of planning, and cannot just be picked up and resumed at the last moment, Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., warned Thursday.
"I'm in the Army Reserves on active duty, and have been in South Korea for part of the planning of these exercises," the member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee told Fox News' "America's Newsroom."
He explained if the biggest exercise would take place in the spring, meetings would start in December in Seoul to plan the spring joint exercises.
"For the Pentagon and their rhythm, working with our south Korean counterparts even if short term there is any type of suspension we can't just at a moment's notice turn it right back on," Zeldin said.
President Donald Trump, citing his personal relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said Wednesday there is no reason to resume the war games with South Korea.
Meanwhile, it is not the first time North Korea has used the strategy for negotiating that has worked in the past, to "string it out," Zeldin said.
"They would like to have more summits, buy themselves more time and to be able to get the end result they want – and at the end of the day they continue to pursue nuclear weapons," said Zeldin. "For the administration, what we're doing here is a actually new plan and that we have not just a bilateral diplomacy and multilateral diplomacy. We're ramping up economic pressure and we've also demonstrated the military option is not only real because we want to use it, it's the last option and we don't want to use it."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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