Days after North Korea conducted its most powerful nuclear test yet, two US bombers flew over South Korea in a display of force – a warning to Pyongyang and reassurance to Seoul.
Advertisement
North Korea’s universally condemned fifth nuclear test is raising concerns the country could conduct at least another test before the end of 2016.
Admiral Harry Harris, the commander of U.S. Pacific Command Commander, said that these flights were made to demonstrate solidarity between the United States, South Korea, and Japan to defend against North Korea and its actions that are provocative and are destabilizing the region.
The stealthy F-22s were joined by South Korean F-15s and US Air Force F-16s in that display at Osan AB. “North Korea continues to blatantly violate its worldwide obligations, threatening the region through an accelerating program of nuclear tests and unprecedented ballistic missile launches that no nation should tolerate”.
The six party talks aimed at ending the North’s nuclear program involve the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea, China, and North Korea but have been stalled since 2008.
As a show of diplomacy, North Korea’s US envoy, Sung Kim, said that Pyongyang’s fifth bomb test is resulting in “additional unilateral measures”, including possible future shows of force from Japan.
The B-1Bs were then handed off to the South Korean pilots in global airspace before doing the flyover and returning to Guam, it said.
The two Koreas remain technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, rather than a peace treaty.
A Chinese man looks at photos of North Korea’s leaders posted outside the North Korean Embassy in Beijing.
Mr Kim, the South Korean official said such a resolution would seek to “close the loopholes” in the existing sanctions as well as to place “pressure on North Korea from all directions so that it will no longer be able to operate normally in the global community”.
USFK Commander General Vincent K Brooks and South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) chairman Lee Sun-jin told reporters after the flight that North Korea’s “blatant disregard” for its global obligations demands that ROK (Republic of Korea) and USA forces “continue to enhance military readiness to take actions as directed to deter North Korea”.
North Korea called it a nuclear warhead and claimed it has the ability to produce them in significant numbers and mount them on “strategic ballistic missiles”.
But Beijing prefers keeping a nuclear-armed North Korea afloat as a buffer against the South and the United States, to risking the collapse of the North’s government with too severe enforcement of sanctions, said analysts.
South Korean military officials said Monday that the North is prepared to conduct another nuclear explosion in an unused tunnel at its main test site.
North Korea is keenly aware of the USA presence on the peninsula and of what it considers the US nuclear threat.
“Left unchecked, Pyongyang will likely develop the capability to reach the continental United States with a nuclear-tipped missile in a decade or so”, he wrote in an analysis posted on the 38 North website, which is run by the U.S. -Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University. The US stations more than 28,000 troops in the South, and tens of thousands more in Japan.
Analysts say that China often increased pressure on the North in the past, too, especially when Pyongyang defied global appeals and carried out nuclear tests and other provocative acts, but China never went as far as to cause real pain to the North.
Global diplomatic efforts to rid the North of its bombs have been stalled since the last round of meetings in late 2008.
Advertisement
To supplement bombing runs and missile strikes, Yonhap also reported that a source indicated a special operations unit had been founded with the objective of taking out North Korean military leaders.
