USA flies B-52 over South Korea after North’s nuclear test

No significant troop movements have been detected in North Korea that could signal an imminent provocation, and the USA is in talks with South Korea about deploying more strategic assets to the peninsula, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min Seok said Monday at a briefing.

SEOUL – US forces in South Korea were put on their highest level of alert on Monday in case of any provocation from North Korea, following North Korea’s nuclear test last week.

The US military sent a B-52 long-range bomber over the Korean peninsula on Sunday in response to the nuclear test announced by North Korea on Wednesday.

But Joseph DeThomas, a former senior State Department official who advised on Iran and North Korea sanctions policy until February 2013, said new sanctions wouldn’t force change in Pyongyang unless China is convinced of the strategic outcome of North Korea having nuclear weapons that could threaten America.

Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), on Monday visited the air force base in Osan, 40 km south of Seoul, along with South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Lee Sun-Jin.

North Korea says it exploded a hydrogen bomb last Wednesday, although the United States and other critics doubt this.

South Korean army soldiers walk to get a ride on a military truck at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, near the border of North Korea and South Korea today.

The new measure taking effect Tuesday bans South Korean food vendors at the complex from staying overnight there, which would reduce the number of South Koreans staying overnight at the complex to about 650.

South Korea and the USA are discussing the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense batteries in the South, while Japan is trying to bolster its military power using North Korea’s nuclear weapons program as an excuse. The content includes messages glorifying Kim Jong Un and attacking South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

Daily life was mostly as normal on the South Korean side of the border on Sunday.

“Even though we do not pose any threat to them, North Koreans have used the excuse of the threat posed by the USA and our allies to develop their unsafe capabilities”, he added.

A US Forces Korea spokesman said the mission was a “response to recent provocative action by North Korea”.

The B-52 flight follows a victory tour by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to celebrate the country’s widely disputed claim of a hydrogen bomb test. Kim is seeking to rally pride in an explosion viewed with outrage by much of the world and to boost his domestic political goals.