• South Korea launched a joint air drill with the US.
• South Korea and the US agreed to strengthen security cooperation.
• North Korea would implement the “concept of ‘nuke for nuke.’

SEOUL: South Korea said Thursday it had launched joint air drills with the United States using strategic bombers and stealth fighters, leading Pyongyang to warn that such activities may “spark an all-out showdown”.

The drills, the first of the year by the security allies, come a day after US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his South Korean counterpart agreed to strengthen security cooperation in order to resist an increasingly hostile nuclear-armed North Korea.

The drills on Wednesday demonstrated “the United States’ willingness and capability to deliver robust and credible extended deterrence against North Korea‘s nuclear and missile threats,” according to the South Korean defense ministry.

According to the ministry, they included American B-1B long-range heavy bombers and stealth aircraft – US Air Force F-22s and South Korean F-35s — flying over the Yellow Sea.

The exercises, said to a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman, might “spark an all-out shutdown.”

Seoul and Washington’s moves to ratchet up joint drills breached “an extreme red line”.

After a year in which North Korea declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear power and conducted missile tests almost every month in violation of UN sanctions, South Korea is trying to persuade its increasingly apprehensive population of America’s solid defense commitment.

In view of Pyongyang’s “continuing provocations,” including a recent drone incursion into the South, Austin, and South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup agreed last week to “increase and enhance the level and scale” of joint military exercises.

‘Nuke for nuke’

Strengthening US-South Korean military drills and sending strategic weapons to the region amounted to “talking about using nuclear weapons against the DPRK,” according to a North Korean statement on KCNA, the country’s official name.

North Korea, it said, would implement the “concept of ‘nuke for nuke and all-out confrontation for all-out confrontation!”

“As long as it pursues its hostile policy and confrontational stance, the DPRK is not interested in any engagement or conversation with the US,” it continued.

Joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea enrage Pyongyang, which sees them as practise for an invasion and has frequently replied with threats and drills of its own.

“By emphasizing that the United States is entirely responsible for the deterioration of the situation on the Korean peninsula, (North Korea) is accumulating legitimacy for the development of its missile and nuclear weapons programs,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

He went on to say that a huge North Korean military parade, as well as the planned launch of a spy satellite, could exacerbate tensions with Seoul and Washington.

According to the 38 North website, commercial satellite data suggests that “massive parade preparations” are underway in Pyongyang ahead of one of the most important official holidays.

The parade could take place on February 16, the “Day of the Shining Star,” the birthday of Kim Jong Il, the son of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung and the father and predecessor of current leader Kim Jong Un, according to the statement.

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