North Korea has threatened to sink a US aircraft carrier to display its military capability as tensions with the US reach new highs.
President Trump ordered the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group to sail just off the Korean peninsula in response to the North’s missile and nuclear tests.
The nation’s ruling Workers’ Party newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, saying:”Our revolutionary forces are combat-ready to sink a US nuclear powered aircraft carrier with a single strike.”
China’s President Xi Jinping is urging President Trump to avoid escalating the situation.
According to Chinese state media, Xi told Trump he “hopes all parties remain restrained instead of intensifying the situation.”
This follows reports from a North Korean university that one of its lecturers, who holds U.S. and South Korean citizenship, has been detained.
“In a statement, [Pyongyang University of Science and Technology] said that its adjunct professor, 58-year-old Tony Kim, who also goes by Kim Sang-duk, was detained at the airport in Pyongyang as he was about to leave the country on Saturday local time,” NPR’s Anthony Kuhn reports. “The university said Kim’s detention had nothing to do with his academic work. So far, North Korea has remained silent about Kim’s detention.”
US Vice President Mike Pence said it would arrive “within days” but gave no other details.
North Korea will mark the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean People’s Army on Tuesday.
In the past, the nation has marked anniversaries with tests of its weapons.
North Korea has conducted at least five nuclear tests, two of them in 2016, and also threatened to develop nuclear-tipped missiles with the capability of reaching the United States.
