Our top story this morning...<br />South Korea and the United States have agreed to scale back their joint 'Foal Eagle' military exercise early next year... in a bid to keep the nuclear negotiations with North Korea on track.<br />Lee Seung-jae starts us off. <br />U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis says South Korea and the United States will curtail a joint military exercise set for next spring to facilitate smooth negotiations on North Korea's nuclear weapons program.<br />Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday,... Mattis said the 'Foal Eagle' exercise will be "reduced in scope" and "reorganized a bit to keep it at a level that will not be harmful to diplomacy."<br />The latest adjustment will be the fifth joint exercise to be scaled back,... as a concession to the Kim Jong-un regime,... following the regime's pledge to dismantle its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.<br />The leaders of North Korea and the U.S. agreed at their Singapore summit in June to work toward the "complete" denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.<br />After that summit,... U.S. President Donald Trump said "provocative" and "expensive" war games with South Korea would be stopped during negotiations with the North.<br />Foal Eagle is a major joint exercise that's held every spring on the Korean Peninsula,... and is one of three large-scale drills,... the others being Ulchi Freedom Guardian and Key Resolve.<br />North Korea has long regarded the exercises as rehearsals for an invasion,... despite assurances from Seoul and Washington that they're purely defensive in nature.<br />In another development Wednesday,... U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he continues to hope a second summit between Kim Jong-un and President Trump will take place early next year.<br />Speaking on a talk radio show,... Pompeo said the U.S. is continuing negotiations with the North to get the regime to implement what Kim Jong-un has committed to: a fully and verifiably denuclearized North Korea.<br />Lee Seung-jae, Arirang News. <br />
