A US nuclear-capable warship arrived in South Korea on Tuesday for the first time in four decades, the latest effort by Washington to boost South Korean confidence in its commitment to defend the country from North Korea.
“As we speak, an American nuclear warship is making port in Busan today,” Kurt Campbell, White House Indo-Pacific adviser, told reporters in Seoul on Tuesday, referring to the port in South Korea’s southwest.
Pentagon he said that a nuclear warship was on its way, but Mr. Campbell was the first person in America to confirm its arrival.
The port call is KentuckyThe Ohio-class submarine “shows the commitment of the United States to the Republic of Korea for our increased security,” the US military said on Tuesday, using the name of the South Korean government.
While President Biden is a South Korean ally, Yoon Suk Yeolmet in Washington in April, the question at the top of their agenda was how to reassure South Koreans who are worried that the United States will protect its ally in North Korea despite North Korea’s nuclear weapons development.
Before the meeting, Mr. Yoon he encouraged that South Korea will one day try to develop its own nuclear weapons.
At the meeting, Yoon reaffirmed South Korea’s policy of not developing nuclear weapons. Instead, the two leaders announced “Washington Declaration“As Mr. Biden said that any nuclear attack by the North against the South will be met with a “swift, deep and decisive response” by “the full force of the US, including nuclear.”
In order to demonstrate such commitment, the United States agreed to increase “constant visibility” of the economy around the Korean Peninsula, including the visit of a US nuclear submarine. The allies also agreed to establish a Nuclear Consultative Group to discuss how to respond to a nuclear attack by Kim Jong-un’s military.
Campbell led the American delegation to the group’s inaugural meeting on Tuesday at President Yoon’s office in Seoul. Mr. Yoon told the meeting that his country’s relationship with the United States was being upgraded to a “nuclear-weapons partnership,” according to his office.
“Any nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies is unacceptable and will lead to the end of the regime,” the group said later.
North Korea accused Washington and Seoul of raising tensions by “openly discussing the use of nuclear weapons.” Washington’s push to strengthen ties with South Korea could only push the North “away from negotiations,” Kim Yo-jong, Mr. Kim’s sister and spokeswoman, said on Monday. .
US nuclear-armed submarines made 35 calls to South Korea between 1976 and 1981, according to military experts. The United States withdrew some of its troops from South Korea in the 1970s as it tried, as it does now, to quell South Korea’s fear of its security commitments.
The United States removed all of its nuclear weapons from South Korea by 1991 as part of the global nuclear disarmament effort. In 1992, the two Koreas signed an agreement not to “test, develop, produce, receive, possess, store, send or use nuclear weapons.”
The North rejected the agreement by developing and testing nuclear weapons. Some experts in the South are questioning whether South Korea has again violated the agreement by keeping an American nuclear-tipped submarine in one of its ports. The country’s Ministry of Defense insisted that the port call did not violate the inter-Korean agreement.