South Korea and Japan conducted their first joint maritime search and rescue exercise in nine years on Sunday, with naval vessels operating in international waters southeast of Jeju Island (a large South Korean island in the Korea Strait). The drill involved a South Korean landing ship and a Japanese Aegis-equipped destroyer, reviving a biennial exercise series that had been frozen since 2017 following a diplomatic dispute over a Japanese patrol aircraft making a low-altitude pass over a South Korean warship. The resumption, agreed upon at defence ministerial talks earlier this year, signals a notable thaw in bilateral military relations between the two US-allied neighbours.