SEOUL, December 24 ------ The United States flew a long-range bomber for joint drills with South Korea and Japan in a show of force against North Korea, days after Pyongyang conducted its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test in five months.
The trilateral training off South Korea's southern island of Jeju was meant to strengthen the countries' joint response against North Korean nuclear threats, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. The exercise involved a B-1B bomber and South Korean and Japanese fighter jets. The aircraft's flyover is the 13th time that a US bomber has been temporarily deployed near and over the Korean Peninsula this year. A B-1B is capable of carrying a large conventional weapons payload. North Korea has previously called the bomber's deployment a proof of US hostility and has reacted with missile tests. North Korea on Monday launched a Hwasong-18 ICBM into the sea in a drill it said was meant as a warning over the US and South Korea's confrontational steps. The North cited a recent US-South Korean meeting to discuss their nuclear deterrence plans.
Washington, Seoul and Tokyo slammed the launch as a provocation, noting it violated multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions that ban any ballistic activity by Pyongyang. The solid-fueled Hwasong-18 is the North's newest and most advanced ICBM. Its built-in solid propellant makes launches harder to detect than liquid-fueled missiles, which must be fueled for liftoffs. Monday's launch is the Hwasong-18's third firing this year.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the launch showed how his country could respond if the US were to make "a wrong decision against it." But many foreign experts say the North still has technological obstacles to overcome to possess a functioning nuclear-armed ICBM that can hit the continental US. This year alone, the North has conducted about 100 ballistic missile tests in what outside experts call a bid to modernize its nuclear arsenal and win greater US concessions. In response, the US and South Korea expanded their military drills, strengthened security cooperation with Japan and increased the temporary deployment of powerful American military assets such as bombers and nuclear-powered submarines in South Korea. Despite its torrid run of ballistic missile tests, North Korea has avoided new international sanctions as China and Russia, both permanent members of the Security Council, stymied any of the body's responses to the North's testing activities. In an emergency Security Council meeting on Tuesday, North Korean and Russian diplomats clashed with US, South Korean and other diplomats over the ICBM's launch.
Source: manilatimes.net
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