US, South Korea to launch major navy drill next week
SEOUL: The United States and South Korea will kick off a major navy drill next week, the US navy said Friday, a fresh show of force against North Korea over its missile and nuclear tests. Tensions over North Korea’s take part in the drill alongside South weapons program have soared in Korean Navy vessels. recent months with Pyongyang The exercise, slated for October 16 to 26 in the Sea of Japan and conducting its sixth and most the Yellow Sea, would promote “communications, interopermultiple sets of UN sanctions. ability, and partnership,” the
The United States has since statement added. ramped up military drills with The move will likely rile Pyongyang South Korea and Japan, its two which had previous warned against closest regional in the region. any upcoming joint exercises.
In a statement the US 7th Fleet “If US imperialists and the South said the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft Korean puppets ignite a nuclear war carrier and two US destroyers would of aggression against us, it would only advance their own demise,” the staterun KCNA news agency said.
- tary hardware movement around the Korean peninsula in recent days.
On Friday the nuclear-powered USS Michigan submarine arrived at South Korea’s southern port of Busan, according to Yonhap news agency, just days after another nuclear-powered submarine—the USS Tuscon—left
supersonic heavy bombers over the night-time joint aviation exercises with Japan and South Korea.
That mission came 17 days after
President Donald Trump has engaged in an increasingly escalating war of words with North Korean strongman Kim Jong-Un, trading insults amid rising tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals.
On Tuesday Trump discussed “a range of options” with his national security team to respond to North Korea’s recent missile and nuclear tests.
It came days after he said that diplomatic efforts with North Korea have consistently failed, adding that “only one thing will work”.
The North’s missile and nuclear capabilities have made sig that the country’s atomic weapons were a “treasured sword” to protect it from aggression.