North Korea threatens ‘rapid, first strike’ on US aircraft carrier deployed to South

Seoul, Oct 13 (EFE).- North Korea on Friday condemned the arrival of a nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier in South Korea and threatened to destroy it.

“It is an undisguised military provocation driving the situation to the irrevocable catastrophic circumstances that the US persists in introducing various nuclear strategic assets into the Korean peninsula where a possibility of constant military collision exists and the danger of outbreak of a nuclear war is rampant,” an editorial published in state news agency KCNA said.

On Thursday, USS Ronald Reagan, accompanied by its strike group, including the destroyer USS Shoup and the guided-missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls, arrived at Busan, 320 kilometers (199 miles) southeast of Seoul, where it will remain for five days to carry out activities with the South Korean navy.

The deployment is part of “extended deterrence,” Pentagon’s commitment to help defend Seoul from attack, which includes the regular rotation of US strategic assets to deter the North Korean regime’s weapons tests.

“The introduction of a group of nuclear-powered carriers advertising that they can fight a war into the Korean peninsula goes to prove that the US scheme for nuclear attack on the DPRK (North Korea’s official name) and its implementation have reached the most serious phase of systematization and visualization and the outbreak of a nuclear war comes to the fore,” KCNA said.

The article added that the allies’ actions had “gone beyond the red line” and that Washington “should realize that its huge strategic assets have entered the extremely dangerous waters.”

“The DPRK’s most powerful and rapid first strike will be given to the ‘extended deterrence’ means,” it warned.

Pyongyang’s message comes after the South Korean defense minister said this week that he would push to suspend a 2018 military agreement signed by the two Koreas to ease tensions amid what Seoul denounces as repeated violations of the pact in recent years by its neighbor.

Tension has escalated on the Korean peninsula after the failure of the 2019 denuclearization negotiations, with Pyongyang rejecting any offer of dialogue and carrying out a record number of missile tests, and Seoul and Washington resuming their large-scale joint maneuvers and deploying US strategic assets in the region. EFE

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