[Yonhap Photo]
North Korea staged a major live-fire exercise in a show of force Tuesday as a US aircraft carrier strike group is set to sail into waters near the Korean peninsula, military authorities said.
The exercise was under way near the North's eastern port city of Wonsan to mark the 85th founding anniversary of its armed forces, the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
"The firing drill is under way near Wonsan," a JCS spokesman told Aju News, declining to confirm a Yonhap News Agency report that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appeared to be supervising the largest gunnery exercise involving up to 400 artillery pieces including long-range cannons.
The drill comes amid heightened tensions across the heavily fortified inter-Korean border over North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. On the southern side of the border, US and South Korean troops have been involved in a series of joint field training and firing drills from April 13 in the northern border city of Pocheon.
North Korea has stepped up its rhetoric against the United States as the American strike group led by aircraft carrier Carl Vinson sails toward the Korean Peninsula for joint drills with South Korean warships off the east coast.
In a statement on late Monday, North Korea's defense minister Pak Yong-sik warned that "precise and advanced striking means" have already been deployed to launch a pre-emptive strike against the United States and its allies, according to Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency.
"Our nuclear weapons capable of striking US military bases in Asia-Pacific areas and the US homeland are fully prepared to be fired from launchers," he said, adding that if enemy forces try to attack North Korea, a powerful preemptive "nuclear" strike would wipe out their stronghold.
US President Donald Trump hit back, describing North Korea as a "real threat to the world", following his separate phone conversations with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Abe.
"The status quo in North Korea is also unacceptable," Trump said during a White House lunch meeting for UN ambassadors from member countries of the Security Council.
"This is a real threat to the world, whether we want to talk about it or not. North Korea is a big world problem and it's a problem we have to finally solve. People put blindfolds on for decades and now it's time to solve the problem," Trump said.
Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the UN, said on NBC's "Today" that Washington could take military action against North Korea if it attacks a US military base, or launches an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
She challenged Pyongyang not to "give us a reason" to fight. "If you see him attack a military base, if you see some sort of intercontinental ballistic missile. Then obviously we're going to do that."
"But right now, we're saying, 'Don't test, don't use nuclear missiles, don't try and do any more actions' and I think he's understanding that. China is helping us really put that pressure on," she said.
Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
