USA: In order to prevent what he called North Korea's increasingly "destabilising" actions, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reaffirmed Washington's "ironclad" commitment to South Korea and pledged to use all of the US conventional and nuclear military capabilities if necessary.

Austin claimed that only the presence of tens of thousands of American soldiers and the "most advanced" military equipment has ensured seven decades of peace on the peninsula in an editorial published by Yonhap news agency on Tuesday, during his third visit to Seoul as the US defence chief. Austin also claimed that the sides are constantly looking for ways to increase their "deterrence activities."

For this reason, we are enlarging the range and magnitude of our joint exercises. To increase our interoperability and readiness to "Fight Tonight" if necessary, we are incorporating live-fire elements, Austin wrote.

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Without mentioning a timetable, he continued, "We are committed to doing even more, including visits to US strategic sites housing our most advanced capabilities to demonstrate the role these capabilities may play in crisis or conflict and increasingly complex scenario-based tabletop exercises focused on nuclear threats on the peninsula."

The US keeps a force of about 28,500 soldiers in South Korea, and it regularly conducts exercises with Seoul that Pyongyang has criticised as "provocations" and "rehearsals" for an invasion. The use of nuclear weapons has been codified into national law in North Korea, which increased its missile tests last year.

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Austin asserted that Pyongyang's military exercises only serve to highlight the need to "remain vigilant" and step up joint training with Tokyo in addition to Seoul, and he issued a warning to all regional "adversaries and competitors" that "if they challenge one of us, they are challenging the... alliance as a whole."

Yoon Suk-yeol, the president of South Korea, stated earlier this month that if "the [North Korean nuclear] problem becomes more serious," his nation "may deploy tactical nuclear weapons or come to possess its own nuclear weapons" in the near future.

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Yoon later apologised for the statement, asserting that Seoul is still dedicated to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and that he was "fully confident" in the US's extended deterrence strategy, which sees the US providing South Korea with a "nuclear umbrella" to protect it from military threats.