SEOUL: A nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier arrived in South Korea on Wednesday for joint military exercises, the US Navy said, in the latest show of force against the North.
The USS Carl Vinson berthed in the southern port of Busan as US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson began a tour of the region, where tensions have spiked in recent weeks with missile launches from the nuclear-armed North and the brazen assassination of Kim Jong-Un’s half-brother in Malaysia.
Pyongyang has long condemned the annual joint drills, which involve tens of thousands of troops, as provocative rehearsals for invasion, while Seoul and Washington insist they are purely defensive in nature.
The aircraft carrier and a US destroyer will conduct naval drills including an anti-submarine manoeuvre with South Koreans in waters off the Korean peninsula as part of the annual Foal Eagle exercise. Yonhap news agency said the navy drills will kick off next week.
“The importance of the exercise is to continue to build our alliance and our relationship and strengthen that working relationship and interoperability between our ships,” Rear Admiral James Kilby, commander of USS Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group 1, told journalists.
He said training opportunities in the region were “world-class” and allow the US to “build upon our strong alliance” with the South.
The North’s official KCNA news agency said Tuesday that “all US military strategic assets including its aircrafts are within the cross hair of our powerful, precision striking means”.
