The United States stepped up its military presence in the region, with its nuclear submarine the USS Cheyenne arriving in a South Korean port
Pyongyang on Friday hailed the successful test of a new type of surface-to-ship cruise missile, which it said was designed to hit “any enemy group of battleships” that threatened North Korea. The launch on Thursday – – was overseen by leader Kim Jong-Un, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency, and came less than a week after the. “The launched cruise rockets accurately detected and hit the floating targets on the East Sea of Korea, ” KCNA said, referring to the Sea of Japan where just last week, two US aircraft carriers were carrying out naval manoeuvres. The USS Carl Vinson and the USS Ronald Reagan led the three-day exercise that ended June 3, with 12 other US ships and two Japanese vessels also participating, in a show of force directed at North Korea. The US has also stepped up its muscle-flexing in the region, with its 6,900-tonne nuclear submarine the USS Cheyenne, whose home port is Pearl Harbor, arriving in the South Korean port of Busan on Tuesday. North Korea has ordered three ballistic missile launches, a surface-to-air missile, and now Thursday’s cruise missile tests since South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-in took power in early May. Thursday’s short-range missiles flew about 200km, an improvement on a 2015 test when a North Korean surface-to-ship cruise missile flew only 100km, Korea Defence Forum analyst Shin Jong-Woo said.
