South Korea will not develop or possess nuclear weapons, president says

Source: The Washington Post




By Adam Taylor October 31 at 11:17 PM

President Moon Jae-in told lawmakers Wednesday that South Korea would not seek to have nuclear weapons and said that Seoul would never accept its neighbor North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.

“According to the joint agreement by the two Koreas on denuclearization, North Korea’s nuclear state cannot be accepted or tolerated. We will not develop or possess nuclear weapons either,” the president said in his second state of the nation address at the National Assembly, South Korea’s parliament.

Recent tests by North Korea have led to a renewed debate about nuclear weapons in South Korea. Although the country once sought its own nuclear weapons in the 1970s during the presidency of Park Chung-hee, leaders were persuaded by the United States to abandon such ambitions.

The United States stationed nuclear-armed weapons in South Korea during the Cold War until 1991, when President George H.W. Bush withdrew all tactical nuclear weapons deployed abroad, though the country remains protected from North Korean nuclear weapons under the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/south-korea-will-not-develop-or-possess-nuclear-weapons-president-says/2017/10/31/e440b2da-beaa-11e7-af84-d3e2ee4b2af1_story.html