While North Korean President Kim Jong Un has issued threats before, the tension arguably has risen now that South Korea and the US are currently in the middle of their annual defensive springtime war games which will run through the end of April.
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US and South Korean troops staged a big amphibious landing exercise on Saturday, storming simulated North Korean beach defences amid heightened tension and threats by the North to annihilate its enemies.
This year’s exercises of South Korea and Washington, meanwhile, will be the largest of their kind in size as they come on the heels of North Korea’s surprise nuclear test in January and a long-range missile test last month.
Overseeing a ballistic missile launch on Thursday, Kim ordered “more nuclear explosion tests to estimate the destructive power of the newly produced nuclear warheads ” , the North’s official KCNA news agency said”.
Pyongyang added it planned to respond to the drills with an “operation to liberate the whole of South Korea including Seoul” with an “ultra-precision blitzkrieg”.
The two met a day after North Korea defied the United Nations by firing two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea.
About 55 USA marine aircraft and 30 US and South Korean ships, including the USS Bonhomme Richard and USS Boxer, which carry AV-8B Harrier attack jets and V-22 Osprey aircrafts, took part in the assault on beaches near Pohang city, the USA navy said.
Both Wang and Lavrov also hit out at USA plans to deploy a missile system in South Korea.
The submarine may be adrift under the sea or have sunk, perhaps after a technical problem during an exercise, CNN quoted US officials with intelligence of secret USA monitoring of the North’s activities as saying. The UN Security Council responded to the North’s latest nuclear test and rocket launch by adopting tough, new sanctions, which Pyongyang condemned as a “gangster-like” provocation orchestrated by the United States. “The global community is imposing strong and comprehensive sanctions and this only goes to prove why they are necessary”, said Unification Ministry Spokesperson Jeong Joon Hee.
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Outside experts have questioned the results of those tests, suggesting Pyongyang had gone little further than a “pop-up” test from a submerged platform.
