THE country has threatened unspecified retaliation after the United States flew long-range bombers over South Korea during training with its forces, which North Korea views as practice for an attack against it.
The United States flew the B-1B bombers on Tuesday during an aerial drill with other US and South Korean fighter jets.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry had said the training was meant to show the two countries’ combined deterrence capability against North Korea’s advancing nuclear programme.
The United States and South Korea routinely hold joint military exercises they describe as defensive in nature.
But North Korea views them as an invasion rehearsal and is particularly sensitive to the United States’ mobilisation in the region of strategic assets such as long-range bombers, aircraft carriers and nuclear-powered submarines.
“The recent military move of the United States and the ROK is an open threat to the security of our state and a grave provocation that raises the military tension in the region to an extreme dangerous level,” an unidentified spokesperson for North Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement carried in state media, aired yesterday.
ROK stands for the Republic of Korea, South Korea’s formal name.
The statement warned the US action would inevitably hurt US security and said North Korea “will deter by dint of powerful force the United States’ aggressive attempt to permanently fix the malignant instability element in the security environment of the region”.
North Korea often test-launches missiles in response to the US flyovers of B-1B bombers, which is capable of carrying with it a huge payload of conventional weapons.
Animosities on the Korean Peninsula are running high as North Korea continues weapons tests designed to modernise their nuclear arsenal as well as supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine by supplying weapons and troops.
Since his inauguration, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly boasted of his personal ties with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and expressed his willingness to reach out to Kim to revive diplomacy.
On March 31, Trump called Kim “a very smart guy” and North Korea “a big nuclear nation”.
Trump said he and Kim “have a great relationship” and that “there is communication,” though there are no known public negotiations and North Korea hasn’t publicly responded to Trump’s outreach. — AP
