Korea: Washington is deploys the F-22 Raptor

Two F-22 Raptor arrived on Sunday in South Korea to participate in the annual Foal Eagle exercises which should last until 30 April a spokesman for U.S. Forces told AFP.

The fighters would be stationed at the U.S. base in Okinawa (south) in Japan, according to unconfirmed reports.

The F-22 has already been mobilised for these maneuvers arms but the context is particularly difficult with verbal inflation that experts believe is disturbing relations between Pyongyang on one side, Seoul and Washington on the other.

The United States announced last week that the B-52 Flying Fortresses and B-2 stealth bombers had carried out training flights in South Korean territory, provoking the wrath of North Korea.

Following this announcement, North Korea has threatened to hit U.S. islands of Guam and Hawaii in the Pacific.

For decades, the Korean peninsula has been regularly shaken by sudden tensions mounted, which almost always follow the same pattern: threats increasingly fierce from Pyongyang, deceleration and then a return to calm.

At this point, several scenarios are possible, but experts differ both on the easing of tensions and suffering an open war that would inevitably be lost by the North.

The Supreme People's Assembly, which in principle rubber stamps the decisions of the party, meets Monday in annual plenary session, for a day, without any dramatic announcement being expected.

The North has played most of its political cards, I do not think that new concrete threats emerge from this meeting, Cho Han-Bum estimated, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.

It probably will release a symbolic message, such as a call to all North Koreans to be ready for a possible war, he added.

The North announced this month that it was cancelling the armistice and other bilateral treaties of peace signed with Seoul to protest against the joint military exercises.

Pyongyang said on Saturday then be in a state of war with the South. The two Koreas are still technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Russia Saturday urged the two Koreas and the United States to exercise responsibility and maximum restraint.

The U.S. Secretary of State for Defence Chuck Hagel said for his part that Washington would not let iself be intimidated by bellicose threats from Pyongyang and was ready to face any eventuality.

South Korean President Park Geun-Hye has meanwhile promised on Monday, after a meeting with senior military and defense minister, violent and immediate retaliation if Pyongyang escalates.

The last episode of invective and threats from Pyongyang and its enemies was in December when the North conducted a successful launch of a rocket seen by Washington and Seoul as a test firing of ballistic missiles.

Pyongyang then conducted its third nuclear test, leading to the adoption in early March of new UN sanctions.