The US and South Korea held the first meeting of a new group that will consult on ways to deter North Korea from using its atomic arsenal and discuss how best to manage America’s nuclear assets in the region.
(Bloomberg) — The US and South Korea held the first meeting of a new group that will consult on ways to deter North Korea from using its atomic arsenal and discuss how best to manage America’s nuclear assets in the region.
President Yoon Suk Yeol said the first meeting Tuesday in Seoul of what is known as the Nuclear Consultative Group was meaningful and the body “should respond to the escalating North Korean nuclear and missile threats by strengthening the implementation of extended deterrence,” according to a statement provided by his office.
The meeting was led by Kim Tae-hyo, the first deputy director of South Korea’s National Security Office, and Kurt Campbell, the White House coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs. The group grew out of a Washington summit in April between President Joe Biden and Yoon, who staked enormous political capital on drawing closer to the US.
The group gives South Korea a greater say in how America deploys its nuclear umbrella and assurances it would be used to retaliate against a North Korean strike. While Yoon won a commitment from the Biden administration to strengthen its deterrence against Pyongyang, the ultimate decision on the use of nuclear weapons still remains with the US.
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The two also agreed to include more regular deployments of nuclear-armed US submarines to protect South Korea. Having a sub off the coast can reduce the time it would take for a nuclear response to North Korea to just a few minutes from the roughly 30 minutes or more it might take to send the weapons from other parts of Asia. North Korea has almost no defenses against US submarines operating in international waters.
North Korea has denounced the group as a “nuclear war tool,” demanded the end of submarine deployments and sternly rejected offers from the US and South Korea to return to long-stalled nuclear disarmament talks.
“The US should know that its bolstered extended deterrence system and excessively extended military alliance system, a threatening entity, will only make the DPRK go further away from the negotiating table desired by it,” Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of the North Korean leader, said in a statement published Monday by state media, referring to the country by its formal name.
North Korea last week tested a new missile designed to deliver a nuclear warhead to the US mainland in a launch overseen by Kim Jong Un. The state’s official Korean Central News Agency said the new Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile served as “a strong practical warning” to the US and South Korea to stop bringing American nuclear assets to the region, flying spy planes overhead and holding joint military exercises that are pushing the peninsula to the brink of war.
China has also denounced plans to bring US submarines near the Korean Peninsula, saying doing so undermines the global nuclear nonproliferation regime.
–With assistance from Shinhye Kang.
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