South Korea's Navy and Marines have joined this year's Cobra Gold exercise, an annual multinational military exercise held in Thailand.
A total of nine countries including the U.S., India, China and Japan have also joined the exercise,... with another seven countries like Australia and New Zealand participating as observers.
The annual exercise, jointly hosted by the Thailand and U.S. militaries,... aims to boost multinational security commitments in the Asia-Pacific region,... for mainly humanitarian and peace-related purposes.
The exercise kicks off from this Saturday and runs for two weeks.
South Korea participated as an observer country from 2002 to 2009,... and has participated as a regular country from 2010.