The South Korean Army announced Wednesday that the US aircraft carrier USS ronald reagan will return to the waters of the East Sea (the name given to the Sea of Japan in the two Koreas), where it already carried out maneuvers last week, in response to the ballistic missile launched by North Korea on Tuesday.
In this same area, the Ronald Reagan and its attack group, made up of the missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville and the destroyer USS Barry equipped with the Aegis system, they carried out exercises for four days with the South Korean and Japanese navies until last Friday.
“This redeployment of an aircraft carrier and its strike group to the Korean peninsula is highly unusual,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement, adding that the action “shows the determination of the alliance between the Republic of Korea (official name of South Korea) and the United States when responding with determination to threats”.
The text adds that the allies are refining their joint preparation in the face of “new provocations by North Korea.”
On Tuesday Pyongyang fired what appears to be a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) that flew over Japan for the first time since 2017 and has been the longest North Korean projectile ever, having flown around 4,500 kilometers.
In response, the South Korean and US armies fired four short-range ground-to-ground missiles on Tuesday in a test that can be framed, like the return of the Ronald Reagan to the Sea of Japan, within the so-called “extended deterrence”. ”.
“Extended deterrence” is a commitment made last May by Washington with seoul and consists of deploying strategic assets of the Pentagon on the Korean peninsula in a “coordinated manner and when necessary” based on Pyongyang’s actions.
Many experts believe that the fact that the North Korean projectile flew over Japan for the first time in five years may point to an intensification, in quantity and scopeof the North Korean weapons tests as happened precisely in 2017, when the regime carried out what is currently its last nuclear test to date.
In fact, satellites have revealed that North Korea has been preparing for a new detonation for monthsand analysts believe that Tuesday’s launch may anticipate a new atomic test that, they point out, would almost in all probability be carried out after the conclusion of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) congress so as not to stir up Beijing, Pyongyang’s main partner.
(With information from EFE)
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Source-www.infobae.com