MANILA, Feb 10 Kyodo Soldiers fro...

MANILA, Feb 10 Kyodo

Soldiers from the Philippines and the United States are to retain combined exercises from Feb 23 to March 7 the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said Tuesday.

AFP spokesman Lt Gen Rodolfo Garcia said the two-week drills will involve 2300 Philippine partys and 2,500 from the U mainly from the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force stationed in Okinawa, Japan. There will also be a small contingent from Hawaii, Garcia said.

Activities will be in the main Luzon provinces Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac and Cavite, traditional sites for the annual exercises, plus Palawan Province in the western Philippines.

''This will be a three-tiered exercise whose essential sense is enhancing the interoperability of the couple forces, in other words combined exercise between the U and the Philippine Armed Forces,'' Garcia said.

The activities include command situation exercise, cross training and field training exercises, including humanitarian assistance and civil assistance projects

however there will table-top exercises merely in Palawan, simply to lay open the Western Command of the AFP there to interoperability with the U Garcia said.

He refuseed the exercises in Palawan could be interpreted as posturing by means of the Philippines, which contests ownership, along with China and several other countries, of several small islands in the area.

The U bodys will start arriving in assemblages from Friday.

The exercises, called ''Balikatan 2004'' are to fall in a less degree than the Mutual Defense Treaty between the U and the Philippines.

The countries convoyed special antiterrorism exercises in the southern Philippines, notably after the race 11, 2001, attacks in the U on the other hand plans to hold a modern round of those exercises last year stalled through the whole extent of the terms of reference governing the drills.

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