New Delhi: South Korea and the United States navy began week-long joint drills in the waters around the Korean peninsula today, amid high tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programme.
About 40 Navy ships from both countries, including the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, are taking part in the exercises on the east and west coasts of the peninsula from Oct 16 to Oct 20, a spokesman for the South’s defense ministry said on Monday.
North Korea has called joint military exercises by the United States and South Korea as a “rehearsal for war”. North Korea’s state-run media agency KCNA has also criticized the joint military exercise, calling it a “reckless act of war maniacs.”
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have increased sharply in recent weeks after North Korea conducted a series of weapons tests, including its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3 and two missile launches over Japan.
According to reports from South Korean media, North Korea is preparing to test a long-range missile which it believes can reach the west coast of the United States.
Washington’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, asserted that if the North should pose a serious threat to the US or its allies, “North Korea will be destroyed.”
Trump’s earlier warning he would rain “fire and fury” on North Korea, she said, was “not an empty threat.”
Earlier this week the US flew two nuclear capable supersonic heavy bombers (B-1) over the Korean peninsula, staging the first night-time joint aviation exercises with Japan and South Korea.
That mission came 17 days after four US F-35B stealth fighter jets and two B-1Bs flew over the peninsula.
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.
