U.S. not planning nuclear exercises with South Korea, Biden says, contradicting Yoon – National | 24CA News
The United States just isn’t discussing joint nuclear workout routines with South Korea, President Joe Biden stated on Monday, contradicting remarks by his South Korean counterpart as tensions flare with North Korea.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol had stated that Seoul and Washington are discussing potential joint workout routines utilizing U.S. nuclear property, whereas North Korean chief Kim Jong Un branded the South its “undoubted enemy.”
“No,” Biden stated when requested by reporters on the White House if he was at present discussing joint nuclear workout routines with South Korea. He had simply returned from a trip within the U.S. Virgin Islands, the place he was accompanied by his nationwide safety adviser, Jake Sullivan.
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Yoon’s feedback, in a newspaper interview printed on Monday, adopted his name for “war preparation” with an “overwhelming” functionality, after a yr of a document variety of North Korean missile exams and the intrusion of North Korean drones into the South final week.
“The nuclear weapons belong to the United States, but planning, information sharing, exercises and training should be jointly conducted by South Korea and the United States,” Yoon stated within the interview with the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.
The newspaper quoted Yoon as saying the joint planning and workout routines could be geared toward a more practical implementation of the U.S. “extended deterrence” and that Washington was additionally “quite positive” concerning the thought.
The time period “extended deterrence” means the power of the U.S. army, notably its nuclear forces, to discourage assaults on American allies.
The United States has lengthy had an prolonged deterrence dialog with Japan to speak about nuclear points and initiated the identical dialog with South Korea in 2016, stated Thomas Countryman, the previous appearing undersecretary of state for arms management, who chaired the dialog’s first assembly.
“It’s not immediately clear what in President Yoon’s statement is new and what is a rephrasing of things that are already happening,” Countryman stated on Monday in a cellphone interview.
Now board chairman of the Arms Control Association, Countryman stated Yoon’s feedback, directed on the South Korean individuals, gave the impression to be in response to what Countryman referred to as North Korea’s provocations and rhetoric.
“I do see this as an effort by both President Yoon and the Biden administration to reassure the government and the people of South Korea, that the U.S. commitment remains solid.”
Yoon’s remarks had been printed a day after North Korean state media reported that its chief Kim had referred to as for growing new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and an “exponential increase” of the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
At a gathering of the ruling Workers’ Party final week, Kim stated South Korea had turn out to be the North’s “undoubted enemy” and rolled out new army objectives, hinting at one other yr of intensive weapons exams and rigidity.
Inter-Korean ties have lengthy been testy however have been much more frayed since Yoon took workplace in May, promising a more durable stance on the North.
On Sunday, North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile off its east coast, in a uncommon late-night, New Year’s Day weapons check, following three ballistic missiles launched on Saturday.
The North’s official KCNA news company stated the projectiles had been fired from its super-large a number of rocket launcher system, which Kim stated “has South Korea as a whole within the range of strike and is capable of carrying tactical nuclear warheads.”
(Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi in Seoul and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Howard Goller and Jonathan Oatis)
