SEOUL, April 17 (AJP) - North Korea’s defense ministry has condemned Wednesday the United States and South Korea for rolling out a joint aerial drill involving B1-B supersonic heavy bombers on the previous day.
“The U.S. reckless bluffing military demonstration is a futile act of increasing the security threat to its mainland only,” Pyongyang’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency reported on Thursday, citing a press statement released by North Korea’s defense ministry.
According to South Korea’s military, the exercise aimed to enhance the regular visibility of U.S. extended deterrence, with participation from South Korea’s F-35A and F-16 fighter jets, as well as U.S. F-16s.
North Korea expressed strong discomfort over the presence of the B-1b bomber flying in South Korea’s airspace. The B-1B Lancer is a U.S. long-range, supersonic heavy bomber capable of carrying the largest conventional payload of guided and unguided munitions in the Air Force inventory. It combines high speed, maneuverability, and low-level penetration capabilities, making it a key asset for global strike missions.
“The continuous appearance of B-1B serves as an occasion of highlighting once again the fact that the U.S. and its vassal forces are the only ones that unilaterally escalates the military tension nowadays while inciting the hostile atmosphere of confrontation in the Korean peninsula,” KCNA reported.
Pyongyang strongly warned that the U.S. military action poses a serious danger to the sovereignty of North Korea and will “exercise the overwhelming deterrence and continue to make the U.S. recognize that its unannounced deployment of strategic means is a reckless and unnecessary abuse of strength, and get the U.S. realize by itself that the higher the level of provocation against the DPRK is, the greater the level of danger returning to the U.S. will be.”
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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