Pyongyang shows its might
N. Korea marks military day as US sub docks in the South
North Korea stages large-scale artillery drill as US submarine docks in South.
SEOUL: North Korea conducted a big live-fire exercise to mark the foundation of its military as a US submarine docked in South Korea in a show of force amid growing concern over the North’s nuclear and missile programmes.
The port call by the USS Michigan came yesterday as a US aircraft carrier strike group steamed towards Korean waters and as top envoys for North Korea policy from South Korea, Japan and the United States met in Tokyo.
Fears have risen in recent weeks that North Korea would conduct another nuclear test or long-range missile launch in defiance of UN sanctions, perhaps on yesterday’s anniversary of the founding of its military.
But instead of a nuclear test or a big missile launch, North Korea deployed a large number of longrange artillery units in the region of Wonsan on its east coast for a livefire drill, South Korea’s military said.
North Korea has an airbase in Wonsan and missiles have also been tested there.
“North Korea is conducting a largescale firing drill in Wonsan areas this afternoon,” the South’s Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
The South Korean military was monitoring the situation and “firmly maintaining readiness”, it said.
The South’s Yonhap News Agency said earlier the exercise was possibly supervised by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
North Korea’s state-run media was defiant in a commentary marking the 85th anniversary of the foundation of the North Korean People’s Army, saying its military was prepared “to bring to closure the history of US scheming and nuclear blackmail”.
“There is no limit to the strike power of the People’s Army armed with our style of cutting-edge mili- tary equipment including various precision and miniaturised nuclear weapons and submarine-launched ballistic missiles,” the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a frontpage editorial.
North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threat is perhaps the most serious security challenge that currently confronts US President Donald Trump.
He has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile and has said all options are on the table, including a military strike.
Trump sent the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group for exercises off the Korean peninsula as a warning to North Korea and a show of solidarity with US allies.
South Korea’s navy said it was con- ducting a live-fire exercise with US destroyers in waters west of the Korean peninsula and would soon join the carrier strike group approaching the region.
China, North Korea’s sole major ally which nevertheless objects to its weapons development, has repeatedly called for calm, and its envoy for Korean affairs, Wu Dawei, was in Tokyo yesterday.