Kitty Hawk headed to South Korea

Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, March 13, 2005

SEOUL — The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk will make a port call in South Korea for military exercises planned to start next week, the U.S. military command in Seoul said Friday.

The Kitty Hawk, based at Yokosuka, Japan, will arrive Monday at South Korea’s southeastern port city of Busan with about 5,200 sailors and 60 aircraft, including F-18 Super Hornets, the military said.

The United States and South Korea will conduct joint military exercises March 19-25 amid a standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. Washington and its allies are trying to lure the North back to the negotiating table to persuade it to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

North Korea warned that the joint military exercises could entail “grave consequences” and hamper efforts to restart the stalled nuclear talks.