WASHINGTON/SEOUL – A US official stated that the USS Abraham Lincoln strike force is currently operating off the Korean peninsula. This was after South Korean media reported the deployment of the vessels amid tensions surrounding North Korea’s missile testing.

According to the official, the group has been in Japan for exercise with Japanese forces in order to assure allies and other partners. This move is coming as U.S. officials become increasingly worried that North Korea might conduct an underground nuclear attack in the next days.

Since 2017, this is the first occasion that a military carrier has been deployed in the area between South Korea’s waters and Japan’s. The USS Ronald Reagan and Theodore Roosevelt, along with their multi-ship strike units, were deployed to the waters between South Korea and Japan in an act of defiance against North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that unidentified sources claimed that the USS Abraham Lincoln would operate in the area for three- to five days.

A spokesperson for the U.S. responded to South Korean media reporting on Monday. Forces Korea (USFK), responded to South Korean media reports on Monday, a spokesperson for the U.S.

During talks in Washington last week, South Korea’s presidential-elect advisors sought to redeploy U.S. strategically assets such as submarines and aircraft carriers to the Korean peninsula.

South Korea’s defense ministry confirmed that it knows the carrier group was in international waters, but did not comment because the aircraft is an American military asset.

North Korea had previously condemned U.S. military exercises as war rehearsals and claimed they only increase tensions.