Any deal for North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal must include “completely removing the nuclear threats of the US,” North Korean state media said yesterday, in one of the clearest explanations of how North Korea sees denuclearization.
US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in June issued a statement after a historic meeting in Singapore reaffirming the North’s commitment to “work towards complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” and including US guarantees of security to North Korea.
However, conflicting or vague views of what exactly “denuclearization” means have complicated negotiations that now appear stalled.
“When we refer to the Korean Peninsula, they include both the area of the DPRK and the area of South Korea where aggression troops, including the nuclear weapons of the US, are deployed,” the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a commentary, using the initials of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“When we refer to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, it, therefore, means removing all elements of nuclear threats from the areas of both the north and the south of Korea and also from surrounding areas from where the Korean Peninsula is targeted,” it said.
The US deployed nuclear weapons in South Korea from 1958 to 1991. Since they were withdrawn, the US has extended its “nuclear umbrella” of support to Japan and South Korea using bombers and submarines based elsewhere.
North Korea has rejected US calls for it to unilaterally denuclearize and Washington should “give up its ambition” to force Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons by “high-handed practices and pressure,” KCNA said.
The US needs to understand the phrase denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula “before it is too late,” it said.
Washington has rejected any suggestion that it would reduce its military presence in the region as part of a deal with North Korea.
“It would be proper to say that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula means ‘completely removing the nuclear threats of the US to the DPRK,’ before it means the elimination of its nuclear deterrence,” KCNA said.
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