USS Theodore Roosevelt will participate in joint military exercises between the United States, South Korea and Japan.
A US nuclear aircraft carrier arrived in South Korea for three-nation exercises aimed at intensifying military training, days after North Korea and Russia signed a mutual defense pact.
“The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt…arrived at Busan Naval Base on the morning of June 22,” the South Korean Navy said in a statement.
“[The aircraft carrier’s arrival] demonstrates the strong combined defense posture of the South Korea-US alliance and its firm determination to respond to growing threats from North Korea,” he said on Saturday.
The carrier is expected to participate in joint exercises with South Korea and Japan this month. Pyongyang has always condemned similar combined exercises as rehearsals for an invasion.
The leaders of the three nations agreed, at a summit in August 2023, to hold annual military exercises. Earlier this month, its defense chiefs announced new exercises aimed at enhancing their combined response across multiple areas, including air, sea and cyberspace.
The arrival of the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group comes a day after South Korea summoned the Russian ambassador to protest the agreement reached between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this week . The pact promises mutual defense assistance in the event of war.
Putin visited North Korea for the first time in 24 years.
South Korea says the deal between the two isolated nations poses a threat to its security and has warned it could consider sending weapons to Ukraine to help combat the Russian invasion in response.
North Korean soldiers have also recently been involved in activities such as laying more land mines, reinforcing tactical roads and adding what appeared to be anti-tank barriers near the border, according to the South Korean military.
The two Koreas are locked in a “balloon war”, with an activist in the South confirming on Friday that he had launched more balloons carrying propaganda to the North.
Pyongyang has already sent more than a thousand balloons carrying trash to the South, and Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, warned on Friday that the North was likely to retaliate.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
