North
Korea has celebrated the 85th anniversary of the foundation of the
Korean People's Army, by showing off its powerful weapons capable of
ruining the US incase of an attack.
North Korea displays one of its powerful missiles capable of leaving US in ruins
North Korea has conducted a big live-fire exercise on Tuesday to
mark the foundation of its military as a U.S. submarine docked in South
Korea in a show of force amid growing concern over the North’s nuclear
and missile programmes.
The port call by the USS Michigan came as a U.S. aircraft carrier
strike group steamed toward Korean waters and as top envoys for North
Korea policy from South Korea, Japan and the United States met in Tokyo.
Fears have risen in recent weeks that North Korea would conduct
another nuclear test or long-range missile launch in defiance of UN
sanctions, perhaps on the Tuesday anniversary of the founding of its
military.
But instead of a nuclear test or big missile launch, North Korea
deployed a large number of long-range artillery units in the region of
Wonsan on its east coast for a live-fire drill, South Korea’s military
said.
North Korea has an air base in Wonsan and missiles have also been tested there.
“North Korea is conducting a large-scale firing drill in Wonsan areas this afternoon,” the South’s Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
The South Korean military was monitoring the situation and “firmly maintaining readiness”, it said.
The South’s Yonhap News Agency said earlier the exercise was possibly supervised by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
North Korea’s state media was defiant in a commentary marking the
85th anniversary of the foundation of the Korean People’s Army, saying
its military was prepared “to bring to closure the history of U.S. scheming and nuclear blackmail”.
“There is no limit to the strike power of the People’s Army
armed with our style of cutting-edge military equipment including
various precision and miniaturised nuclear weapons and
submarine-launched ballistic missiles,” the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a front-page editorial.
North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threat is perhaps the
most serious security challenge confronting U.S. President Donald Trump.
He has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the U.S.
with a nuclear missile and has said all options are on the table,
including a military strike.
Trump sent the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group for
exercises off the Korean peninsula as a warning to North Korea and a
show of solidarity with U.S. allies.
South Korea’s navy said it was conducting a live-fire exercise with
U.S. destroyers in waters west of the Korean peninsula and would soon
join the carrier strike group approaching the region.
China, North Korea’s sole major ally which nevertheless objects to
its weapons development, has repeatedly called for calm, and its envoy
for Korean Affairs, Wu Dawei, was in Tokyo on Tuesday.
“We hope that all parties, including Japan, can work with China
to promote an early peaceful resolution of the issue, and play the
role, put forth the effort, and assume the responsibility that they
should,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang said in Beijing.
Japan’s envoy on North Korea, Kenji Kanasugi, said after talks with
his U.S. and South Korean counterparts that they agreed China should
take a concrete role to resolve the crisis and it could use an oil
embargo as a tool to press the North.
“We believe China has a very, very important role to play,” said the U.S. envoy for North Korea policy, Joseph Yun.
South Korea’s envoy, Kim Hong-kyun, said they had also discussed how to get Russia’s help to press North Korea.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to meet Russian
President Vladimir Putin on April 27, the Kremlin said. It did not
elaborate.
A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said those meetings
called by U.S. officials clearly reflected the U.S. pressure that could “ignite a full-out war” on the Korean peninsula.
On Monday, Trump called for tougher U.N. sanctions on the North,
saying it was a global threat and “a problem that we have to finally
solve”.
The official China Daily said it was time for Pyongyang and
Washington to take a step back from harsh rhetoric and heed calls for a
peaceful resolution.
-Reuters/NAN
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