According to senior USA defense officials, the USS Vinson aircraft carrier strike group is in the Philippine Sea in waters south of Japan. After withdrawing from the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty in 2003, North Korea has gone on to conducting several nuclear tests, most recently in September 2016.
North Korea on April 25, marked a military anniversary with a conventional firing drill, reports said, as South Korea announced joint naval exercises with a U.S. aircraft carrier amid tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. North Korea has an air base in Wonsan and missiles have also been tested there.
South Korea's Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff said it was monitoring the situation and "firmly maintaining readiness".
"The situation prevailing on the Korean Peninsula is so tense that a nuclear war may break out due to the frantic war drills of the USA imperialists and their vassal forces for aggression", Gen. Pak Yong Sik told a meeting of thousands of senior military and civilian officials. Speculation has grown that such a test, or another long-range missile launch, could coincide with the 85th anniversary of the foundation of the North's Korean People's Army on Tuesday.
"There is no limit to the strike power of the People's Army armed with our style of cutting-edge military equipment, including various precision and miniaturised nuclear weapons and submarine-launched ballistic missiles", the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a front-page editorial.
North Korea held an enormous military parade held to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of the country's founder, Kim Il Sung on April 15. It has marked such dates in the past with displays of its military capabilities.
The submarine's visit to South Korea follows Pyongyang's threat to sink a US Navy strike group led by the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and the detention over the weekend of an American professor from a Chinese university who was working on a relief project in North Korea.
The US Navy said the port call of the Ohio-class guided-missile submarine MI was "normal routine", but its arrival came after the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group, accompanied by two Japanese destroyers, said they expected to reach Korean waters on Wednesday, according to the US Defence News.
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Abe also said he and Trump agreed that China, North Korea's neighbour and sole major ally, should play a large role in dealing with Pyongyang.
Japan's envoy on North Korea, Kenji Kanasugi, said after talks with his US and South Korean counterparts that they agreed China should take a concrete role to resolve the crisis and it could use an oil embargo as a tool to press the North.
President Donald Trump is seeking to press North Korea by emphasising that all options - including military action - are on the table to prevent Mr Kim from achieving the ability to strike North America with a nuclear weapon. South Korean envoy Kim Hong-kyun said they also discussed the need for Russia's cooperation on the issue. Completion of the review was "accelerated to have it done before Trump's summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping". It did not elaborate.
North Korea's foreign ministry said the meetings called by USA officials reflected US pressure that could "ignite a full-out war" and showed that Pyongyang's decision to become a nuclear power was correct.
Trump on Monday urged UN Security Council ambassadors to consider stronger sanctions against Pyongyang, and U.S. senators will be briefed on North Korea at the White House today. The administration has settled on a strategy emphasizing increased pressure on North Korea with the help of China, rather than trying to overthrow Kim Jong Un's isolated government or use military force. And on Monday, Trump called on visiting United Nations ambassadors to apply more sanctions on Pyongyang.
"The council must be prepared to impose additional and stronger sanctions", he said.
The official China Daily said it was time for Pyongyang and Washington to take a step back from harsh rhetoric and heed calls for a peaceful resolution.
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