South Korean Minister of National Defense Lee Jong-sup has suggested a shift in focus of the country’s policy to place more emphasis on deterring North Korea from using its growing arsenal of nuclear weapons instead of concentrating solely on reversing their development, Yonhap news agency reported.
Lee on Wednesday said that his country should work to deter the use of nuclear weapons by sending Pyongyang a message that it would bring an end to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s regime.
“We have put our focus on trying to prevent North Korea from conducting additional nuclear tests and advancing its nuclear capabilities, but it’s time to change our strategy,” Lee said in a meeting of the ruling People Power Party’s committee on North Korea’s nuclear threat.
Photo: Reuters
“The priority should be on deterring the use of nuclear weapons by giving them a clear sense that if North Korea attempts to use nuclear weapons, it will bring about an end to the North Korean regime and it will disappear completely,” he said.
Such a shift in emphasis, while not a complete turnaround, would mark a new posture for South Korea and its allies, which have been focused on blocking — and reversing — North Korea’s development of a nuclear arsenal.
Lee also called for steps to ensure a US commitment on the use of military assets to defend an ally like South Korea and for the nation to strengthen its own defense capabilities.
Photo: EPA-EFE
On Monday, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol told parliament that North Korea has finished preparations for a nuclear test, stoking fears that Pyongyang’s first blast of such a device in five years could be imminent.
Washington’s push to isolate Moscow over Russian Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, coupled with increasing animosity toward China, has allowed Kim to strengthen his nuclear deterrent without fear of facing more sanctions at the UN Security Council.
Kim, who last ordered a nuclear weapons test in 2017, might be looking to conduct a test to enhance Pyongyang’s ability to miniaturize a warhead to fit onto its new missiles designed to strike South Korea and Japan, which host the bulk of US troops in Asia. Kim is also looking to increase the power of nuclear devices that would be mounted on long-range rockets designed to hit the US mainland.
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