Pentagon chief vows to deploy ‘best’ US weaponry to Asia

SEOUL (AFP) — Defense Secretary Ashton Carter promised Friday that the US would deploy state of the art weaponry in Asia, including the latest stealth bombers and cyber warfare units, to counter threats posed by the likes of North Korea.

“Our newest and best things are being deployed to this part of the world,” Carter said in Seoul — the second leg of a visit to the two key US military allies in the region, Japan and South Korea.

The Pentagon chief said his talks with South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-Koo had included a “candid assessment” of the threat posed to the Korean peninsula — and the US homeland — by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program.

“As it demonstrated once again with the recent missile launches, North Korea is intent on continued provocation,” he told reporters.

The North fired two surface-to-air missiles off its west coast on Tuesday, just as Carter arrived in Japan on the first leg of his tour.

Earlier, it had test fired a series of short-range ballistic missiles to express its anger with annual South Korean-US military exercises which Pyongyang condemns as rehearsals for invasion.

The US has close to 30,000 troops permanently stationed in South Korea and would assume operational command of both armed forces in the event of a conflict with the North.

The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a ceasefire rather than a peace treaty.

EPA US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter visits the wreck of the Cheonan ship that sank in the Yellow Sea after an apparent North Korean attack during his visit to the Second Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek, South Korea on Friday.