A U.S. Navy strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier was making its way towards the Korean peninsula Sunday "to maintain readiness" as Kim Jong Un's regime in North Korea prepared to mark key anniversaries this coming week.
Tensions remain high on the Korean peninsula as North Korea has conducted four missile launches this year and US officials have said it appears another North Korean underground nuclear test could occur at any time.
In a call on Thursday, a day after North Korea's latest missile test, Abe said he and Trump had agreed the ballistic missile launch was "a unsafe provocation and a serious threat". Pacific Fleet in turn reports to Adm. Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, who ordered the Vinson group north.
The US has sent warships into waters near the Korean Peninsula in a show of force against North Korea's "reckless" nuclear threat.
"This coordinated initiative could force North Korea to make real demilitarization concessions, while providing a win for both China and the United States", Markey wrote, adding that China has unsuccessfully urged the U.S. to engage North Korea directly for years.
Experts fear and believe that North Korea is only two years away from having long-range missiles that will be able to reach the US.
The strike group has participated in numerous exercises with Japan and the South Korea and conducted routine patrol operations in the South China Sea since its January 5 deployment from San Diego, California, the Navy statement said.
U.S. intelligence officials have also said the North Korean nation could be less than two years away from developing a nuclear warhead that could reach the United States.
The move will raise tensions in the region and comes hard on the heels of a USA missile strike on Syria that was widely interpreted as putting Pyongyang on warning over its refusal to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
Google accused of underpaying female workers by US regulators
Janet Herold, a regional solicitor for the Department of Labor, says that the inquiry is still incomplete. Indeed, on Equal Pay Day on April 4, Google announced it had " closed the gender pay gap globally ".
There was little doubt the missile strikes would be seen in Pyongyang as a message.
The move of the USS Carl Vinson is in response to recent North Korean provocations, the official said.
McMaster said on "Fox News Sunday".
North Korea has an aggressive campaign to develop ballistic missiles with a stated aim of attacking the United States.
Trump has previously said the United States will act against North Korea without China's help. South Korea should play a greater role since it has the most at stake, the newspaper reported him as saying.
China's top nuclear envoy Wu Dawei will be holding talks with his South Korean counterpart in Seoul to discuss the results of the recently-held U.S.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday the United States and China agreed to work together to push North Korea to abandon its weapons programs, but the United States was willing to go it alone.
The country's "self-defensive and pre-emptive strike capabilities with nuclear force at their core" were justified by the current grim situation, officials from Pyongyang said in a statement provided to CNN.
Comments