White House negative about nuclear weapons in S. Korea

White House negative about nuclear weapons in S. Korea. September. 23, 2016 07:15. by 워싱턴=이승헌 특파원ddr@donga.com.

The White House has rejected calls in South Korea for Seoul’s nuclear armament or redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons.

"We think it's not in our interest and in South Korea's interest for South Korea to pursue nuclear weapons," Jon Wolfsthal, senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the White House's National Security Council, told reporters after attending the 4th U.S.-ROK Dialogue at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington on Wednesday. It was the first time that a senior White House official in charge of North Korean nuclear issues publicly expressed Washington’s opposition to Seoul’s nuclear armament or tactical nuclear redeployment, although U.S. State Department's Special Representative for North Korea Policy Sung Kim expressed such opposition during his visit to Seoul immediately after North Korea’s fifth nuclear test.

"The long-standing view in the United States is that we together are more than capable of defending South Korea and Japan against any conceivable threat from any country, that we always have the full range of capabilities available to us if necessary," Wolfsthal said. He stressed that Seoul and Washington "are voluntarily and legally bound under the nonproliferation treaty in a way that benefits them greatly and something that forms a backbone of our alliance."

Regarding the probe into the Dandong-based Chinese trading conglomerate Liaoning Hongxiang Group, which is suspected of having shipped nuclear materials to North Korea, the White House official said, “It doesn’t matter if it’s a pencil or an ounce of gold or a boatload of coal. Everything that North Korea does we believe is linked or supportive of their weapons of mass destruction program and that trade is to be prohibited.”