Two U.S. Air Force B-1 bombers flew over South Korea near the border with North Korea today to reinforce the U.S. commitment to its regional ally after the North’s latest nuclear test.
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The supersonic bombers left US Andersen Air Force Base on Guam on Tuesday morning and arrived over the skies above the Osan Air Base at 1000 h local time, Yonhap news agency quoted a USFK commander as saying.
Such flyovers are fairly common when animosity rises on the Korean Peninsula, which is technically in a state of war because there has never been a peace treaty to officially end the 1950-53 Korean War.
“These flights demonstrate the solidarity between South Korea, the United States, and Japan to defend against North Korea’s provocative and destabilizing actions”, Adm. Harry Harris Jr., commander of U.S. Pacific Command, said in a written statement.
He said more troubling was that the recent test successes might give Pyongyang a false sense of confidence.
“North Korea’s nuclear test is a unsafe escalation and poses an unacceptable threat”, said Gen Brooks.
North Korea has hosted an eerie mass rally to celebrate the country’s successful nuclear test, despite widespread worldwide outrage. “The United States and the Republic of Korea are taking actions every day to strengthen our alliance and respond to North Korea’s continued aggressive behavior”, he added. Last month, it successfully launched a missile from a submarine near its east coast port of Sinpo.
Pyongyang could test another nuclear weapon after the United Nations Security Council passes additional sanctions or during joint U.S.
“It’s China’s responsibility. China has and shares an important responsibility for this development and has an important responsibility to reverse it”. “It’s important that it use its location, its history and its influence to further the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula – not the direction things have been going”.
“The cause and crux of the Korean nuclear issue rest with the U.S. rather than China”.
Pyongyang’s activities are “a outcome of the administrations’ failed policy of strategic patience and its hollow pivot to Asia”, said U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Washington’s special representative for North Korea policy, Sung Kim, said in Seoul Tuesday that China must help the worldwide community close loopholes in sanctions against Pyongyang.
South Korea also demanded new sanctions against North Korea in order to discourage the continuation of the nuclear program.
North Korea may be adding seven nuclear bombs to its arsenal annually and could have about 20 bombs by the end of 2016, according to a US analyst.
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Critics both in the US and overseas say Obama’s weak stance on China has led to its expansion and North Korea’s recklessness. She also urged opposition leaders to support her decision to deploy the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea and rejected proposals to send a special envoy to Pyongyang to initiate talks.
