WASHINGTON, Ramadan 20, 1435, July 17, 2014, SPA -- Fighter jets roared off an American aircraft carrier into a gray sky on Wednesday as the United States kicked off a joint naval exercise off the west coast of the Korean Peninsula, with the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, calling for strong punishment if North Korea initiated a military provocation. Speaking to a group of South Korean military leaders, Ms. Park called the North Korean government so unpredictable that it was impossible to foresee its behavior “even an inch ahead.” “If they launch a provocation, I ask you, commanding officers of the military, to retaliate with a strong initial countermeasure,” Ms. Park said Wednesday. She also cited international concern that North Korea might attempt another nuclear test. About 200 nautical miles off the west coast of South Korea, the United States aircraft carrier George Washington cruised through drizzle as F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets screamed off the deck. Officers on board said that the jets conducted 108 sorties from the U.S.S. George Washington on Wednesday alone in an exercise that Rear Adm. Mark C. Montgomery said was designed to bolster the American and South Korean forces’ combined “ability to counter maritime special operations force insertions.” The United States Navy’s five-day joint drill with South Korea involves six American ships, a large number of South Korean Navy vessels and United States and South Korean Air Force combat aircraft, both in the seas off the east and west coasts of South Korea, said Admiral Montgomery, commander of the United States Seventh Fleet’s Carrier Strike Group Five operating out of Yokosuka, Japan. --SPA 12:02 LOCAL TIME 09:02 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w