US aircraft carrier increases pressure on North Korea, Pyongyang warns of retaliation

US aircraft carrier ups pressure on North Korea

ABOARD USS GEORGE WASHINGTON — A massive nuclear-powered U.S. supercarrier began maneuvers Sunday with ally South Korea in a potent show of force, four months after the sinking of a South Korean warship. North Korea threatened the exercises could lead to nuclear war.

The military drills, set to run through Wednesday, involve about 8,000 U.S. and South Korean troops, 20 ships and submarines and 200 aircraft. The USS George Washington, with several thousand sailors and dozens of fighter jets aboard, was deployed from Japan.

The exercises will be the first in a series of U.S.-South Korean maneuvers conducted in the East Sea off South Korea’s east coast, and in the Yellow Sea closer to China’s shores in international waters. The exercises also are the first to employ the F-22 stealth fighter — which can evade North Korean air defenses — in South Korea.

The American and South Korean defense chiefs announced last Tuesday in Seoul they would stage the military drills to send a clear message to North Korea to stop its “aggressive” behavior.

Washington and Seoul blame Pyongyang for the sinking of the 1,200-ton Cheonan warship in late March near the Koreas’ maritime border. A five-nation team of investigators concluded a North Korean torpedo sank the Cheonan, considered the worst military attack on the South since the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea, which denies any involvement in the sinking, has warned the United States against attempting to punish it. The regime called the drills an “unpardonable military provocation” aimed at preparing an invasion.

“Our military and people will squarely respond to the nuclear war preparation by the American imperialists and the South Korean puppet regime with our powerful nuclear deterrent,” the North’s government-run Minju Joson newspaper said in a commentary headlined, “We also have nuclear weapons.”

The commentary was carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The North’s powerful National Defense Commission issued a similar threat Saturday, saying the country “will start a retaliatory sacred war … based on nuclear deterrent any time necessary in order to counter the U.S.”

Pyongyang’s rhetoric regarding using nuclear deterrence was seen by most as bluster, but its angry response to the maneuvers underscores the rising tension in the region.

The North routinely threatens attacks whenever South Korea and the U.S. hold joint military drills, which Pyongyang sees as a rehearsal for an invasion. The U.S. keeps 28,500 troops in South Korea and another 50,000 in Japan, but says it has no intention of invading the North.

South Korea was closely monitoring North Korea’s military but spotted no unusual activity Sunday, the Defense Ministry said.

Though the impoverished North has a large conventional military and the capability to build nuclear weapons, it is not believed to have the technology needed to use nuclear devices as warheads.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Wednesday, after visiting the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas, the U.S. would slap new sanctions on the North to stifle its nuclear ambitions and punish it for the Cheonan sinking.

On Friday, the European Union said it, too, would consider new sanctions on North Korea.

In an apparent bow to China, the George Washington will participate in the exercise in the East Sea, but there are no plans for it to enter the Yellow Sea for subsequent exercises.

China, a traditional North Korean ally, has voiced concerns that military drills in the Yellow Sea could inflame tensions on the Korean peninsula and also fears exercises too close to its own shores could breach Chinese security.

The Nimitz-class George Washington had been expected to join in exercises — code-named “Invincible Spirit” — off South Korea sooner, but the Navy delayed those plans as the United Nations Security Council met to deliberate what action it should take over the Cheonan sinking.

The council eventually condemned the incident, but stopped short of naming North Korea as the perpetrator.

Associated Press writers Kwang-tae Kim and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul contributed to this report.