US WARSHIPS were dispatched to waters around the Korean peninsula over the weekend as Washington ramped up tension with Pyongyang.

The Carl Vinson strike group, comprising an aircraft carrier, cruisers and destroyers, was ordered to the region to maintain “readiness,” the US navy said.

“The number-one threat in the region continues to be North Korea, due to its reckless, irresponsible and destabilising programme of missile tests and pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability,” according to US Pacific Command spokesman Dave Benham.

Pyongyang has launched an increasing number of missiles towards Japan this year, most recently last Wednesday, although South Korean analysts believe that test was a failure as the missile fell into the sea after just 37 miles.

The dynastic regime’s nuclear weapons programme is condemned even by its main ally, China, as a destabilising force in the Far East and a provocation which is used in Japan and South Korea to ramp up militarism and justify a significant US military presence in both countries.

President Donald Trump raised hackles ahead of his Mar-a-Lago summit with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping by declaring the US would “solve” the North Korea issue on its own if China did not take unspecified action to do so.

But last week’s illegal US air strike against the Syrian military was held up by North Korea as proof it needs nuclear weapons to deter a similar attack.

Calling the Tomahawk strikes on the Shayrat air base “absolutely unpardonable,” the country’s Foreign Ministry stated that the North would now “bolster our capability for self-defence in every way to cope with the US’s ever-more reckless moves to war.”

Washington conducts annual war games with its South Korean allies in which mock invasions of the North are practised — exercises the North views as preparation for an actual invasion.

A clash with North Korea could spark a wider conflict.

The US has 400 military bases in the Pacific, creating a ring around China that Beijing fears could allow it to cut off trade routes preventing imports, including of oil.

China’s response, building and patrolling artificial islands to maintain control of the routes, has angered many of its neighbours.