USS Michigan docks in Busan after North's missile launches

The nuclear-powered guided missile submarine USS Michigan docks in Busan on Friday. [YONHAP]

A U.S. nuclear-powered guided missile submarine (SSGN) docked in Busan on Friday, marking the first such visit in six years, Seoul's Defense Ministry said.

USS Michigan is the first SSGN to visit South Korea since October 2017, and is scheduled to stay until next Thursday, a South Korean defense official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

In a Defense Ministry press release, South Korean Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Kim Myung-soo said, “The U.S. SSGN’s visit to South Korea is intended to substantively implement the agreement in the Washington Declaration made in April to enhance the regular visibility of strategic assets on the Korean Peninsula,” referring to the joint statement issued by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden during Yoon’s state visit to Washington in April.

The South Korean and U.S. navies plan to conduct combined special operations exercises during the submarine’s visit to enhance their interoperability and joint capability to respond to the threat posed by North Korea’s advancing weapons programs.

The submarine will also take part in various events with the South Korean Navy to mark the 70th anniversary of the South Korea-U.S. alliance.

The second out of 18 Ohio-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, USS Michigan was converted into a guided missile submarine in 2007.

When fully armed, the submarine can carry over 150 Tomahawk cruise missiles, which have a range of 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles).

The arrival of the SSGN submarine in Busan came a day after the North fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea, an act that sparked condemnation from the national security advisers of South Korea, the United States and Japan.

In a joint statement, the advisers called the launches “clear violations of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions, and demonstrate the threat the DPRK’s unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs pose to the region, international peace and security, and the global non-proliferation regime.”

DPRK refers to the acronym for the North’s official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The statement came as South Korean National Security Adviser Cho Tae-yong visited Tokyo to confer with U.S. and Japanese counterparts Jake Sullivan and Takeo Akiba on the threat posed by North Korea.

The three countries’ national security advisers called on all countries “to fully implement DPRK-related UN Security Council resolutions that are intended to prohibit the DPRK from acquiring the technologies and materials needed to carry out these destabilizing launches.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller later repeated criticism of the North’s latest missile launches.

“They demonstrate the threat the DPRK’s unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs pose to the region, to international peace and security and to the global nonproliferation regime,” the spokesman said at a daily press briefing.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]