Hong Kong, May 26 (CNA) The aircraft carrie Kitty Hawk of the US Seventh Fleet arrived in Hong Kong from Thailand for a five-day visit on Friday.

A spokesman for the Seventh Fleet said that the visit had been previously planned, and had nothing to do with current tensions across the Taiwan Strait, prompted by ongoing mainland Chinese artillery live-fire exercises along the coast of Fujian Province.

The aircraft carrier and accompanying vessels will depart for its home base of Yokosuka Harbor in Japan on May 30.

The spokesman declined to say whether the Kitty Hawk will pass through the Taiwan Strait.

But he disclosed that the flotilla had sailed through the Taiwan Strait on the eve of the May 20 inauguration of Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian, and added that a guided-missile vessel remains in the South China Sea.

About 4,800 sailors and more than 70 aircraft are aboard the Kitty Hawk. (By Shu Chen-hui & Victor Lai)