POHANG (Yonhap News) ― South Korea and the United States jointly held a logistics drill on the east coast involving MV-22 Ospreys as part of their annual exercises, the Combined Forces Command said Friday.

As part of the Foal Eagle exercised, which wrap up at the end of this month, Navy and Marine Corps forces of the two nations have conducted logistics training near the eastern port city of Pohang.

Three vertical takeoff and landing aircrafts were sent from Futenma air station in Japan’s Okinawa to South Korea for the April 18-28 Combined Joint Logistics Over the Shore exercise, and unveiled to the media earlier in the day.

It is the first time tilt-rotor aircrafts have joined the joint drills held on the Korean Peninsula since their highly controversial deployment in Okinawa last October due to a spate of crashes overseas involving the aircraft and fierce opposition from local residents.

“The naval exercise aims to improve logistics interoperability, communication and cooperation between the United States and South Korea,” according to the USFK Website.

The Marine Corps MV-22 variant is an assault transport for troops, equipment and supplies, capable of operating from ships or from expeditionary airfields ashore.

Since entering service with the U.S. Marine Corps and Air Force, the Osprey has been deployed in both combat and rescue operations over Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

As the two-month exercise is expected to end over the weekend, military officials in Seoul are paying keen attention to a potential shift in North Korea’s hostile rhetoric as it demanded the withdrawal of U.N. sanctions imposed in response to its third nuclear test and the end of South Korea-U.S. military dills as conditions for resuming talks to defuse tension on the peninsula.

Seoul and Washington say joint trainings are defensive in nature, and insist they have no intention of invading the North.

Some 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in the South as a deterrent against the North, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War which ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty.