North Korea’ s neighbours continued to amass substantial amounts of military hardware in the region on Friday as tensions escalated ahead of a major military anniversary for Kim Jong-un’s regime next week.
N orth Korea’s neighbours continued to amass substantial amounts of military hardware in the region on Friday as tensions escalated ahead of a major military anniversary for Kim Jong-un’s regime next week.
There were reports of increased activity from Chinese bombers and Russia deploying troops to its Far East while South Korea was put on heightened alert ahead of 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean People’s Army on Tuesday.
With regional analysts fearing that the North’s defiant young dictator will order another missile or nuclear test to mark the occasion, South Korea announced it was placing its forces in a state of heightened alert.
The build-up of tension come as a US aircraft carrier navy group continued to move towards Korean waters, amid reports that the heads of the Five Eyes intelligence agencies – the US, UK, Austrialia, Canada and New Zealand – were to hold their annual meeting in a secluded New Zealand mountain resort.
US officials said Chinese bombers had been put on “high alert » in order to react to a potential crisis on the Korean peninsula, several reports said.
T he steps would bring the aircraft up to “full readiness through intensified maintenance, ” and would “reduce the time to react to a North Korea contingency, ” reported CNN, citing a US defence official.
The move was swiftly denied by Beijing.
It comes after US president Donald Trump cryptically told the media on Thursday that « some very unusual moves have been made over the last two or three hours » by the Chinese.
