“Today’s demonstration provides just one example of the full range of military capabilities in the deep resources of this strong alliance to provide and strengthen extended deterrence”, said Gen. Vincent Brooks, U.S. Forces Korea commander.
Advertisement
“With the two successful nuclear tests this year, we must assume that the DPRK has designed and demonstrated nuclear warheads that can be mounted on some of its short-range and perhaps medium-range missiles”.
In February, after a North Korean rocket sent a satellite into space, the US Air Force flew four of its top-of-the-line F-22 Raptors over South Korea in a show of force.
The supersonic bombers left U.S. Andersen Air Force Base on Guam on Tuesday morning and arrived over the skies above the Osan Air Base, south of Seoul, at 10:00 a.m.
“Our intention is to secure the strongest possible (U.N. Security Council) resolution that includes new sanctions as quickly as possible”, Kim told a news briefing after holding discussions with his South Korean counterpart.
South Korea does not have nuclear weapons and relies on the United States “nuclear umbrella” as a deterrent to North Korea.
The US “will take necessary steps to do so, including operations like this one today, and the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) battery to the Korean Peninsula”, he said.
The flight came after the North on Friday carried out what it described as a “nuclear warhead test” and vowed to take further measures to increase its nuclear strike force “in quality and in quantity”.
B-1B bombers, escorted by US and South Korean jets, were seen by an Associated Press photographer as they flew over Osan Air Base. Kim met Japanese officials on Sunday and said the United States may launch unilateral sanctions against North Korea, echoing comments by U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday in the wake of the test.
Noting that for a statement like that to come forward, it has to have unanimous agreement of the Security Council, Earnest said that is an indication of how unified the global community is in prioritising the situation in North Korea, in being alarmed about the situation there and in considering additional steps to isolate it even further.
Writing on the 38 North website, which monitors North Korea, Hecker estimated the country had stockpiled sufficient plutonium and highly enriched uranium for about 20 bombs by the end of the year and had the capacity to add about seven more a year.
North Korea is keenly aware of the USA presence on the peninsula and of what it considers the US nuclear threat. “A lot of North Korean military commanders find US bombers especially threatening, given the destruction here in Pyongyang during the Korean War, when much of the city was flattened”, Ripley said.
The United States and South Korea are pushing for more sanctions against Pyongyang to close loopholes left in a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted in March.
While the South Korean Defense Ministry did not use such language, it did respond to this weekend’s nuclear test with its own official warning that Pyongyang should refrain from threatening it neighbors.
In this photo, taken on September 13, 2016, Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Lee Sun-jin (second from left) and USFK Commander Gen. Vicent K. Brooks (third from left) stand together at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek.
A USA special envoy for the isolated state, Sung Kim, will travel to Seoul on Monday.
In yet another tough statement against North Korea, South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday ordered her military to be ready to “finish off” North Korea if it fires a nuclear missile toward South Korea.
Advertisement
General Vincent Brooks, commander of the 28,500 United States troops stationed in South Korea, watched the show of aerial show of force alongside his South Korean counterpart General Lee Sun-jin. She already said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s “mental state is spiraling out of control” and that his government shows “fanatic recklessness”.
