SEOUL/WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - South Korea said on Monday it was talking to the United States
about deploying aircraft carriers and strategic bombers to the Korean
peninsula
after signs North Korea might launch more missiles in the wake of its sixth and
largest nuclear test.
The U.N.
Security Council was set to meet later on Monday to discuss new sanctions
against the isolated regime. U.S. President Donald Trump had also asked to be
briefed on all available military options, according to his defense chief.
Officials
said activity around missile launch sites suggested North Korea planned more
missile tests.
“We have
continued to see signs of possibly more ballistic missile launches. We also
forecast North Korea could fire an intercontinental ballistic missile,” Jang
Kyoung-soo, acting deputy minister of national defense policy, told a
parliament hearing on Monday.
North Korea
tested two ICBMs in July that could fly about 10,000 km (6,200 miles), putting
many parts of the U.S. mainland within range and prompting a new round of tough
international sanctions.
South
Korea’s air force and army conducted exercises involving long-range
air-to-surface and ballistic missiles on Monday following the North’s nuclear
test on Sunday, its joint chiefs of staff said in a statement.
In addition
to the drill, South Korea will cooperate with the United States and seek to
deploy “strategic assets like aircraft carriers and strategic bombers”, Jang
said.
South
Korea’s defense ministry also said it would deploy the four remaining launchers
of a new U.S. missile defense system after the completion of an environmental
assessment by the government.
The rollout
of the controversial Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system at a
site south of the South Korean capital, Seoul, is vehemently opposed by
neighboring China and Russia, had been delayed since June.
TOUGH TALK
North Korea
said it tested an advanced hydrogen bomb for a long-range missile on Sunday,
prompting a warning of a “massive” military response from the United States if
it or its allies were threatened.
“We are not
looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea,” U.S.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said after meeting Trump and his national security
team.
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