Pyongyang Brands Trump 'Destroyer of Peace' as US, S Korea Start Naval Drills

Donald Trump's presence in Asia appears not to have calmed tensions in the Korean peninsula, where South Korea has launched joint military drills with the US; in turn, Pyongyang has called the US President a "destroyer" who has "begged for a nuclear war."

North Korea has launched a stinging attack on US President Donald Trump following his visit to South Korea.

"Trump, during his visit, laid bare his true nature as destroyer of world peace and stability and begged for a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula," a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said Saturday, in a statement published by the KCNA news agency.

Also on Saturday, the US and South Korean navies launched four days of joint drills off the east coast of South Korea. 

According to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, the exercises involve three US aircraft carriers, the USS Nimitz, the Ronald Reagan and the Theodore Roosevelt. Also taking part are 11 US Aegis ships and 7 South Korean Aegis ships, featuring the Aegis ballistic missile defense system.

In this image released by the U.S. Navy, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, flanked by South Korean destroyers, from left, Yang Manchun and Sejong the Great, and the U.S.Navy's Wayne E. Meyer and USS Michael Murphy, transit the western Pacific Ocean Wednesday, May 3, 2017.

© AP Photo / U.S. Navy

The drills aim to show "strong will and firm military readiness to defeat any provocation by North Korea with dominant force in the event of crisis," the South Korean military stated.

US President Donald Trump visited Seoul earlier this week, on a 13-day tour of five Asian countries. He made a speech to the South Korean parliament, in which he criticized the country's northern neighbor.

"I have also come here, to this peninsula, to deliver a message directly to the leader of the North Korean dictatorship, Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face," Trump told Pyongyang.