North Korea claims U.S. submarine visit to South Korea is a 'rehearsal' for further deployment

June 25 (UPI) -- The North Korean government has called a recent visit of the U.S. submarine Michigan to South Korea a "rehearsal" for the further deployment of nuclear submarines around the Korean peninsula.

Lt. Cmdr. Samuel Boyle of Submarine Group Seven said in a statement last week that the Ohio-class guided-missile submarine USS Michigan visited the port of Busan in South Korea on June 16.

"The port visit in Busan reflects the United States' commitment to the Indo-Pacific region, and compliments the many exercises, training, operations and other military cooperation activities conducted by U.S. submarine forces with our [South Korean] allies," Boyle said at the time.

The USS Michigan is one of the U.S. Navy's four Ohio-class guided-missile submarines. It is more than 560 feet long and weighs more than 18,000 tons when submerged, making it one of the largest submarines in the world.

Kang Jin Song, an international affairs analyst in North Korea, issued a statement Saturday blasting the port visit and claiming that "U.S. strategic assets are expanding the scope of their maneuvers in the air and sea and underwater around the Korean peninsula."

"Such reckless expanded deployment of strategic assets targeted at a belligerent country on the Korean peninsula, where a touch-and-go nuke-for-nuke dynamical structure exists, presupposes irretrievable catastrophic consequences to peace and security in the region and the rest of the world," Kang said.

Kang added that "it is a matter of time that U.S. strategic nuclear submarines are deployed on the Korean peninsula following Michigan."

"The reality in which the U.S. and its followers' worrying military activities are expanding from time to time in their scale and manner urgently requires the DPRK to take more preemptive defense measures to protect the security interests of the state with clear actions which the hostile forces can perceive," Kang said.

The visit of the USS Michigan to South Korea marked the first time in almost six years that an SSGN has stopped in the country and comes after Pyongyang fired two short-range ballistic missiles on Thursday evening.

The news came as senior Russian diplomats met with North Korea's vice foreign minister Im Chon Il and China's Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Sunday in the aftermath of the Wagner rebellion.