(MENAFN- Qatar News Agency) Oul July 11 (QNA) - North Korea denounced the entry of a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier into a South Korean port on Friday calling its participation in a planned joint naval drill between Seoul and Washington a "grave unpardonable provocation" Yonhap news agency reported.
The 97000-ton supercarrier USS George Washington powered by two nuclear reactors arrived in the port of Busan earlier in the day for joint military exercises with Seoul and Tokyo planned for late July.
The North's propaganda website Uriminzokkiri claimed that the international community is backing the country's recent reconciliatory gestures aimed at mending inter-Korean relations.
Still the U.S. responded to the gestures by deploying the nuclear aircraft carrier and planning joint war exercises with the South and Japan the website said calling the moves a "grave unpardonable provocation" as well as an "ill-willed challenge" to the Korean Peninsula.
The South and the U.S. have described the joint exercises as regular or pre-planned but these are only a pretext to cover the "provocative aggressive" nature of their identities the website said.
The U.S. floating air base with about 70 fighter jets and bombers on board is scheduled to join a joint naval exercise with the South Korean Navy in South Korea's southwest sea from July 16-21 as part of their annual military drill plan.
It will then participate in a trilateral search and rescue exercise with South Korean and Japanese maritime forces in waters south of the southern island of Jeju for two days starting July 21. (QNA)
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