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US and South Korean display of strength warns North Korea off nuclear test

South Korea and the US flew 20 jets in response to an increase in tensions with North Korea
South Korea and the US flew 20 jets in response to an increase in tensions with North Korea
AP

The United States and its allies flew fighter jets off the Korean Peninsula in a display of strength aimed at deterring North Korea from carrying out a new nuclear test.

Twenty South Korean and US military planes, including F-35A stealth fighters, flew over the Yellow Sea west of South Korea as the International Atomic Energy Agency warned of signs that Pyongyang had reopened its underground nuclear test site.

The aerial manoeuvres followed a joint South Korean-US missile launch on Monday and naval exercises involving the American aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan.

South Korea and the US carry out joint air exercises

“South Korea and the US demonstrated their strong capability to rapidly and accurately strike in the event of any North Korean provocations, as well as their will to do so,” Seoul’s joint chiefs of staff said in a statement.

Wendy Sherman, the US deputy secretary of state, warned of stern consequences if the North carried out its seventh nuclear test, which would be the first since 2017. “There would be a swift and forceful response to such a test,” she said in Seoul, after meeting her South Korean counterpart, Cho Hyun-dong.

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“Any nuclear tests would be in complete violation of UN Security Council resolutions . . . this would be very destabilising to the world security. And I believe that not only South Korea, the United States and Japan, but the entire world will respond in a strong and clear manner. We are prepared.”

Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, added his voice to those warning of a likely test. “At the nuclear test site at Punggye-ri we have observed indications that one of the [entrances] has been reopened, possibly in preparation for a nuclear test,” he said yesterday.

In May 2018, North Korea invited foreign camera crews to film the destruction of tunnel entrances and buildings at the Punggye-ri site, where six nuclear tests were carried out between 2006 and 2017.

It was a symbolic moment in the pivot to diplomacy made that year by Kim Jong-un. In the same year, the North announced a freeze on the testing of nuclear weapons and the long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could deliver them to the US. The unexpected unilateral step was followed by meetings with President Trump and President Moon.

Trump repeatedly pointed to the destruction of the site as one of the concrete results of his policy towards Kim. But the extent to which Punggye-ri was truly disabled has never been independently verified. In 2020 a panel of UN experts suggested that only its entrances had been destroyed and that it could be restored months.

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“If North Korea carries out a nuclear test, we would have to review imposing additional sanctions to North Korea, together with the United States and the international society, and there would also be additional measures taken to strengthen the joint defence posture,” Cho said after his meeting with Sherman.

Such a punishment could be opposed in the United Nations security council by Russia and China, however, which vetoed new sanctions proposed after Pyongyang test-fired an ICBM last month.

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