North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the mouthpiece of the ruling Workers’ Party, said the United States was bringing the political situation to the brink of war by sending strategic bombers to South Korea.
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The B-52 was escorted by F-15k fighter jets from the South Korean Air Force and US F-16 fighters based in South Korea.
Kim Jong-Un, the leader of the secretive communist state, said it was created to protect the region “from the danger of nuclear war caused by the US-led imperialists”, according to the country’s news agency.
Last week, South Korea resumed broadcasting propaganda across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) via loudspeakers following Pyongyang’s claim of a successful H-bomb test, which has been hotly disputed by its neighbors and the U.S.
While China remains non-committal on how to respond to North Korea’s fourth nuclear test, the United States and South Korea are exercising their limited options to increase deterrence and punitive measures against the Kim Jong Un government.
Mr. Hwang will visit China on Thursday for talks, amid repeated calls by Beijing, Pyongyang’s sole ally, for all sides to show restraint. South Korea is also arranging a meeting with Russia’s top negotiator for the six-way talks.
Such is the importance of ideology in the reclusive North that the previous round of inter-Korean psychological warfare pressured Pyongyang into last August’s landmark cooperation deal – albeit not before an exchange of fire.
China has publicly supported a denuclearised Korean Peninsula, and the United States will “make sure that they understand that a nuclear North Korea is not a stable scenario”, he said.
North Korea’s military, the backbone of the Kim regime, will be hit hard in particular, he said, noting that Russian crude supplies have been halted since the early 1990s.
The flight mission demonstrated the strength of the alliance between the United States and the South Korea and the resolve of both nations to maintain stability and security on the Korean Peninsula, Pacific Command said.
North Korea previously conducted three nuclear tests: in 2006, in 2009 and in 2013.
Compared to the South’s devices, whose sound output can reach as far as 20 kilometers beyond the border, the North’s sound output is said to be half that.
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The US and South Korea are struggling to get unity on a response from China, which is North Korea’s main ally. “We hope that our fellow Koreans in the North will be able to live in a society that doesn’t invade individual lives as soon as possible”, a female presenter said in parts of the broadcast that officials revealed to South Korean media.
