{"id":1199706,"date":"2023-09-04T06:15:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-04T06:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/korea\/nkorea-yoon-warn-09042023014815.html"},"modified":"2023-09-04T06:15:00","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T06:15:00","slug":"south-korea-warns-the-north-to-stop-nukes-program-or-risk-regime-instability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/09\/04\/south-korea-warns-the-north-to-stop-nukes-program-or-risk-regime-instability\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korea warns the North to stop nukes program or risk regime instability"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Korea\u2019s President Yoon Suk Yeol has issued a fresh warning to North Korea Monday, urging Pyongyang to halt its nuclear program if it wants to avoid regime instability.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNorth Korean authorities are wasting scarce financial resources on the development of nuclear and missile capabilities,\u201d Yoon said in a written interview with the Associated Press.\u00a0 \u201cConsequently, the hardships faced by North Koreans in their everyday lives are worsening, and its economy continues to register negative growth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAmid such circumstances, unless North Korea stops its nuclear development, the regime\u2019s instability will continue to increase.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The South Korean leader on Monday also pressed China to take \u201cconstructive efforts to denuclearize North Korea.\u201d He added that Beijing must realize Pyongyang\u2019s nuclear provocations pose \u201ca negative effect on China\u2019s national interests by further disrupting regional order among other things.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yoon\u2019s remarks came on the heels of\u00a0 North Korea\u2019s simulated strike on the South on Saturday, in what Pyongyang called a \u201ctactical nuclear attack\u201d drill\u00a0 to bolster its nuclear capability against Washington and Seoul.<\/span><\/p>\n

North Korea launched two cruise missiles carrying mock nuclear warheads towards the West Sea of the Korean peninsula. The missiles traveled about 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) for more than two hours, before detonating at an altitude of 150 meters, the official Korean Central News Agency said. While firing cruise missiles isn\u2019t prohibited by the U.N., they present a significant threat to U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ENG_KOR_YoonOnNK_09042023_2.JPG\"
General view of a simulated \u201ctactical nuclear attack\u201d drill at an undisclosed location in North Korea. Credit: KCNA via Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The North\u2019s repeated nuclear provocations, combined with U.S.-China rivalry, have placed the Korean peninsula at the forefront of the ideological clash between democracy and authoritarianism. While Pyongyang\u2019s provocations have strengthened trilateral security cooperation among the U.S., South Korea and Japan, both China and Russia are defending\u00a0 North Korea on the international stage, with the North reciprocating this backing.<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe international community must clearly demonstrate that its determination to stop North Korea\u2019s nuclear program is much stronger than North Korea\u2019s will to continue developing it,\u201d Yoon, who is set to attend ASEAN and the G20 summits this week, said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cruise missiles pose a major security challenge to Seoul and U.S militaries stationed in South Korea, said Cheon Seong-whun, a former security strategy secretary for South Korea\u2019s presidential office.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey are challenging to intercept, and arguably, there’s no current defense system entirely adequate against them,\u201d Cheon noted. \u201cGiven North Korea declaring its intention to deploy nuclear warheads on the cruise missiles, the allies must strategize and respond accordingly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe allies must address this issue within the NCG framework agreed upon by the United States and South Korea,\u201d the former aide continued.<\/span><\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s launches also coincided with the end of the U.S. and South Korea\u2019s 11-day training exercises, which North Korea had labeled as invasion rehearsals.<\/span><\/p>\n

The U.S. and South Korea held their inaugural Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) meeting in July, where they discussed \u201cinformation sharing, consultation mechanisms, and joint planning and execution to enhance nuclear deterrence against North Korea,\u201d according to South Korea\u2019s presidential office.<\/span><\/p>\n

The NCG framework was announced during the bilateral summit in Washington in April against the backdrop of growing demands in South Korea for its nuclear armament in light of Pyongyang\u2019s escalating nuclear threats.<\/span><\/p>\n

North Korea has been ramping up its nuclear provocation over the past few weeks. The country disclosed that it had performed a \u201cscorched earth\u201d nuclear strike simulation targeting South Korea on Thursday. Earlier in the same week, Kim Jong Un characterized the heads of the U.S., South Korea, and Japan as \u201cgang bosses,\u201d in an apparent derision to the three leaders\u2019 summit on Aug.18 in Camp David, Maryland.<\/span><\/p>\n

In response, the U.S. and South Korea <\/span>imposed sanctions<\/span><\/a> on individuals and entities implicated in illicit financing for weapons of mass destruction programs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Edited by Elaine Chan and Taejun Kang.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\nThis content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia<\/a> and was authored by By Jeong-Ho Lee for RFA. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yoon said global community\u2019s resolute to deter Pyongyang must exceed its will to pursue nuclear development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29279,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2242,42620,38351,1182,43188,378,45465,785,27149,17931,28426,27150,4141,43212,42603,43703],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1199706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1199706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1199706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1199706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}