N/KOREA TENSION : US ' ARMADA",NOT SAILING TO KOREAN PENINSULA

Image captionMike Pence calls North Korea 'most dangerous threat

    The United States Navy said on 8 April,2017 that the Carl Vinson strike group was travelling to the Korean peninsula amid tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.

     Last week,the US President Donald Trump said an "armada" was being sent.

But the group was actually farther away over the weekend, moving through the Sunda Strait into the Indian Ocean.

The US military's Pacific Command said on Tuesday that it had cancelled a port visit to Perth, but had completed previously scheduled training with Australia off its northwest coast after departing Singapore on 8 April.

The strike group was now "proceeding to the Western Pacific as ordered".It is not clear whether the failure to arrive was a deliberate deception, perhaps designed to frighten North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un, a change of plan or simple miscommunication, the BBC's Korea correspondent Stephen Evans says.

Either way,Mike Pence, the United States vice president, was undeterred as he spoke aboard the USS Ronald Reagan - an aircraft carrier docked in Japan - during his tour of the region, vowing to "defeat any attack and meet any use of conventional or nuclear weapons with an overwhelming and effective American response".

   North Korea and the United States have ratcheted up tensions in recent weeks and the movement of the strike group had raised the question of a pre-emptive strike by the US.

ImaTimelinerece