SEOUL, January 11. /TASS/. South Korea and the United States are planning to hold a tabletop exercise in February to practice various scenarios, including one implying nuclear use by North Korea, the South Korean Ministry of National Defense said on its website.

The Yonhap news agency says that the discussion-based Table-Top Exercise (TTX) is set to take place in the U.S. in the second half of February, with the deputy defense minister leading the South Korean delegation. During the exercise, the allies are expected to discuss coordinated responses to a scenario of North Korean nuclear use, including cooperation procedures with the international community.

"In the past, the TTX centered largely on discussions about deterrence and crisis management. The scope (of the planned exercise) will widen as the North even raised the possibility of nuclear use, fanning concerns among our citizens," a source told the agency.

Similar theoretical training sessions by the US and South Korean military have been held annually since 2011, but under the previous president, Moon Jae-in, an advocate of a dialogue with the DPRK, they took place only twice.

In the spring, the allies are planning to hold an 11-day Freedom Shield exercise without a break for the first time. Previously, the US and South Korean military took a short pause during the drills. "We will apply realistic training scenarios that reflect the current security situations, including lessons from the war in Ukraine and advancing North Korean threats," the Defense Ministry’s report says.

Seoul and Washington plan to carry out some 20 large-scale field exercises in the first half of this year, Yonhap points out. By expanding the scale and increasing the frequency of the appearance of US strategic means in the Korean Peninsula’s region South Korea hopes to achieve the same effect their permanent deployment would yield.