South Korea and the United States on Friday conducted a joint drill aimed at promptly dispatching American troops to the Korean Peninsula on the occasion of contingency, the South's Army said.

Heightened tensions on the divided peninsula remain following North Korea's latest nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.

The drill between South Korea's 2nd Operations Command and the 8th U.S. Army called for the South's Army to provide support for Washington's expedited dispatch of its soldiers to the peninsula at the case of war, it said.

n 1994, the exercise, known as the "RSOI" drill, kicked off as a simulation-driven drill aimed at upgrading the allied forces' capabilities. Since 2014, it has been conducted as a field exercise.

RSOI is an acronym for "Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration."

"The exercise would help check how the U.S. could promptly send its troops to the front lines on the occasion of war on the peninsula," said an official in the South Korean Army.

About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea as a deterrent against North Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce, not in a peace treaty. (Yonhap)