Petty Officer 2nd Class Thomas Gammon, of Georgetown, Texas, stands lookout aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson as it pulls into Busan, South Korea, for a scheduled port visit, March 2, 2025. (Pablo Chavez/U.S. Navy)
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea – A visit by a U.S. aircraft carrier to South Korea prompted a warning Tuesday from the sister of North Korea’s autocratic leader that Washington and Seoul “should not test the will and ability” of the communist regime.
Kim Yo Jong alleged the arrival Sunday of the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group at Busan disregards Pyongyang’s security concerns and was “aggravating the situation.” Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, is a high-ranking government and Communist Party official.
“The hostile policy toward the [North] pursued by the U.S. at present is offering sufficient justification for [North Korea] to indefinitely bolster up its nuclear war deterrent,” she said through the state-run Korean Central News Agency. “We will never confine ourselves to sitting still and commenting on the situation.”
Pyongyang plans to “carefully examine” unspecified options that will threaten “the security of the enemy,” she added.
The USS Carl Vinson arrived at Busan, roughly 200 miles southeast of Seoul, for a port call accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton and the guided-missile destroyer USS Sterett.
The visit demonstrates the allies’ commitment to their military partnership and “shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific,” U.S. 7th Fleet spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Jamie Moroney said by email Sunday.
Moroney declined to specify how long the U.S. warships will remain at Busan.
North Korea regularly criticizes joint military drills between the U.S. and its ally, and the appearance of U.S. strategic assets, like aircraft carriers and long-range bombers, in South Korea.
Kim also took issue with a Feb. 20 bomber escort drill, when two U.S. B-1B Lancers flew alongside South Korean F-35A Lightning IIs and F-15K Slam Eagles through South Korean airspace.
“If the actions of strategic bombers are put together, the U.S. is hurling strategic assets into the Korean Peninsula at the constant deployment level,” she said Tuesday.
The last carrier to dock at Busan, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, arrived June 24 and continued on to a maritime and air power exercise with South Korean and Japanese forces.
The U.S. and South Korea are scheduled to kick off their Freedom Shield exercise later this month. The large-scale exercise is held annually throughout South Korea on land, air and sea for roughly two weeks.
North Korea test-fired three short-range ballistic missiles in March 2024, four days after the U.S. and South Korea wrapped up the last Freedom Shield.
The communist regime on Jan. 14 last fired several short-range ballistic missiles that flew roughly 155 miles before coming down in the East Sea, or Sea of Japan.
