The aircraft carrier USS George Washington, seen here leaving its homeport in Japan on Oct. 30, 2025, concluded its first visit to South Korea since 2014 on Nov. 9, 2025. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)
Pyongyang condemned the USS George Washington’s visit to South Korea as a “brazen” provocation, as the aircraft carrier departed the port city of Busan on Sunday following its first visit to the Korean Peninsula in more than a decade.
The carrier left Busan Naval Base after four days, accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls and the guided-missile destroyers USS Shoup and USS Milius, the U.S. 7th Fleet said in a Sunday news release.
While in port, the carrier hosted leaders from both militaries, according to the release. A fleet spokesman did not immediately respond to an email requesting additional details Monday.
The Navy described the visit as an opportunity to strengthen the long-standing U.S.-South Korea alliance. But North Korea said the deployment heightened tensions between Pyongyang and Seoul.
North Korean Defense Minister No Kwang Chol said the George Washington’s presence amid joint U.S.-South Korean air force drills — known as Freedom Flag — represented a “critical excess.”
That exercise was scaled down from two weeks of combined training to one week of U.S.-only drills and one week of joint operations to maintain readiness during last month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, a South Korean Ministry of National Defense spokesman told Stars and Stripes by text message at the time.
In a Saturday statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, No warned that future threats would become “direct targets” of North Korea.
“We are ready to respond to everything,” he said.
A day before No’s statement, North Korea launched a ballistic missile toward the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea. It flew about 500 miles before landing outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, according to the country’s defense minister.
On Saturday, Seoul urged Pyongyang to halt actions that further escalate regional tensions, a defense ministry spokesman said by text message to Stars and Stripes on Saturday.
“Our military strongly condemns North Korea’s recent missile launch and expresses deep regret over its criticism of the annual South Korea-U.S. combined exercises and conferences,” he wrote.
Some South Korean government officials are required to speak to the media on condition of anonymity.
