SEOUL (AFP) -- South Korea and the United States will hold a major joint military landing exercise next week involving more than 8,000 Marines and scores of vessels and aircraft, officials said Wednesday.

The drill could further sour relations between South and North Korea, which regularly denounces such joint exercises as preparations for an invasion of the socialist state.
The drill in the southeastern port of Pohang from November 2 to 8 will involve 6,000 Korean Marines and 2,000 U.S. Marines from a unit based on Okinawa in Japan.
""The exercise is aimed at enhancing the command capabilities of the U.S.-South Korea combined forces ... and establishing an effective network of cooperation among command-level units,"" the South Korean Marine Corps said in a press statement.
It will involve 27 naval ships, more than 30 helicopters and about 70 amphibious landing vehicles.
The landing is part of a larger annual drill named the Hoguk Exercise, focused on raising joint combat capabilities on land, sea and air, the Marine Corps said.
During the Hoguk Exercise from October 30 to November 8, two South Korean army corps will take part in river-crossing drills.
Yonhap news agency said General Walter Sharp, new commander of U.S. Forces Korea and of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, ordered the command in July to conduct a division-size amphibious drill.
""General Sharp said the countries needed to show North Korea that (our) combined forces are well capable of conducting such a large-scale amphibious operation,"" a military source was quoted as saying by Yonhap.
The North's military described its capability as ""beyond imagination, relying on striking means more powerful than a nuclear weapon.""
The 1.1 million-strong military has for years deployed hundreds of conventional missiles targeting the South.
The U.S. fought for the South during the 1950-53 war and has deployed troops in the country ever since. At present the U.S. contingent numbers 28,500.