Top South Korean and US military officials on Sunday visited an aircraft carrier taking part in the ongoing joint military exercises, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday.

JCS Chairman Gen. Lee Sun-jin and Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, commander of US forces in South Korea, visited the nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier during the annual drill.

"The aircraft carrier group's participation in the Foal Eagle exercise shows that US strategic assets could be deployed at any time to the Korean Peninsula," said Lee. 

If North Korea misjudges the security situation on the peninsula and makes a provocation, it will be overwhelmingly responded to by the allies, he said.

The Foal Eagle exercise started March 1 and will run through the end of April. On Monday, the Key Resolve computer-simulated command post exercise began and will run through March 24.

Seoul and Washington said the joint drills are purely defensive, but Pyongyang has denounced them as a rehearsal for an invasion.    

The Carl Vinson is scheduled to arrive in the southern port of Busan, 453 kilometers south of Seoul, on Wednesday to join the exercises, according to the defense ministry. (Yonhap)