The US military carrier USS Ronald Reagan launched a new round of naval drills with South Korean warships on Friday, a day after North Korea fired more ballistic missiles and flew warplanes in an escalation of tensions with its rivals.
The Reagan and its battle group returned to the waters near the Korean Peninsula after North Korea launched a nuclear-capable missile over Japan earlier this week, as a response to the carrier group's earlier training with South Korean navy ships.
North Korea views U.S. South Korean military exercises as a practice to invade the country.
The latest two-day drills, which also involve U.S. and South Korean destroyers and other vessels, took place in international waters off the peninsula's east coast. The drills are aimed at bolstering the allies defense capabilities and include training to escort the Reagan southeast of South Korea's southern island of Jeju, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
The statement said that we will continue to strengthen our firm's operational capabilities and readiness to respond to any provocations by North Korea.
North Korea may react to the new drills with more missile tests. The North s Foreign Ministry said Thursday that the carrier group's redeployment poses a serious threat to the stability of the situation on the Korean Peninsula and in its vicinity. The top nuclear envoys of South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed on Friday to increase efforts to block North Korea's alleged criptocurrency thefts and other means to finance its nuclear and missile programs. According to South Korea's Foreign Ministry, the envoys decided to solidify international cooperation to check North Korea's attempts to evade U.N. sanctions, such as banned ship-to- ship transfers on the sea.
North Korea's record pace of weapons testing this year is intended to expand its arsenal so that it can threaten the U.S. mainland and regional allies with nuclear weapons, and then engage in negotiations with the U.S. from a stronger position as a recognized nuclear state. The North's sixth round of weapons launches in less than two weeks was the result of two ballistic missile launches on Thursday.
The intermediate-range North Korean missile test Tuesday was likely to be a Hwasong- 12 missile, which is capable of reaching the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, observers say. Other missiles launched recently are short-range weapons that target South Korea.
North Korea is preparing to conduct its first nuclear test in five years and is preparing to test a new liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile and a submarine-launched ballistic missile, Heo Tae-keun, South Korea's deputy minister of national defense policy, told lawmakers earlier this week.
Heo had three bilateral video calls with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts to discuss North Korea's recent missile tests. The South Korean Defense Ministry said that if the North continues to its provocations, the security cooperation between the three countries would be strengthened.
On Thursday, naval destroyers of the three countries conducted one-day joint drills off the peninsula's east coast to improve their ability to search, track and intercept North Korean ballistic missiles. They held anti-submarines exercises involving the Reagan in the area last week.
North Korea also flew 12 warplanes dozens of kilometers from the inter-Korean border, prompting the South to scramble 30 military aircraft in response. South Korea's military said that eight North Korean fighter jets and four bombers were believed to have conducted air-to-surface firing drills. Yonhap news agency reported that it was likely North Korea's biggest warplane mobilization for such an exercise near the border.