North Korea yesterday criticized the arrival of a US aircraft carrier battle group in South Korea, calling it a provocation and again raising the specter of using nuclear weapons to defend itself.
The North’s latest nuclear threat came a day after the USS Ronald Reagan and its battle group arrived at South Korea’s southeastern port of Busan, following US-South Korean-Japanese naval exercises in international waters earlier this week.
South Korean defense officials said the carrier is to be docked at Busan for five days as part of an agreement to increase the temporary deployments of US military assets in response to the North’s growing nuclear program.
Photo: AP
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) yesterday called the aircraft carrier’s arrival “an undisguised military provocation” that proves a US plan to attack North Korea is being realized.
It threatened to respond in line with its escalatory nuclear doctrine that authorizes the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons.
“The [North Korean] doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons already opened to public allows the execution of necessary action procedures in case a nuclear attack is launched against it or it is judged that the use of nuclear weapons against it is imminent,” KCNA said.
North Korea’s “most powerful and rapid first strike will be given to the ‘extended deterrence’ means, used by the US to hallucinate its followers, and the bases of evil in the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity,” KCNA reported.
North Korea has argued it was forced to develop nuclear weapons to cope with what it calls plots by the US and South Korea to invade.
It has often made furious responses to the deployment of US strategic assets such as aircraft carriers, long-range bombers and nuclear-powered submarines, as well as US joint training exercises with South Korean forces.
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