Assistance from Russia had rendered sanctions imposed on nuclear-armed North Korea “ineffective,” South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said yesterday after discussing the matter with US President Donald Trump.
Lee and Trump met at a G7 summit in France this week, where they discussed the long-running standoff between South Korea and its northern neighbor.
“I told him sanctions and pressure are ineffective,” Lee told reporters in Seoul.
Photo: AFP
“The effectiveness of sanctions has diminished due to military cooperation between North Korea and Russia stemming from the war in Ukraine,” he said.
“Even a small amount of assistance from Russia is of great help to North Korea,” he added.
Pyongyang is under multiple sets of sanctions over its nuclear program. The two Koreas remain technically at war because their 1950-1953 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
While in France, Trump signed a deal aimed at ending the war in the Middle East, and speculation has been rife that his administration will next shift its diplomatic focus to North Korea.
Lee said Trump had told him in that “the time had come to pay attention to the North Korea issue.”
On Sunday, Trump posted an uncaptioned photo of himself and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un taken at a meeting in Singapore in 2018.
Kim has recently sought to enhance his standing with his allies, sending troops and munitions to aid Russia’s war against Ukraine.
He also hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Pyongyang soon after Xi had held back-to-back summits in Beijing with Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The White House said Xi and Trump had “confirmed their shared goal of denuclearizing North Korea” during their summit in China.
However, neither Pyongyang nor Beijing mentioned the issue in their official statements following the Xi-Kim summit — which experts interpreted as a sign of China’s tacit acceptance of North Korea’s nuclear status.
Pyongyang has repeatedly declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state since a 2019 summit between Kim and Trump in Hanoi collapsed over the scope of denuclearization and sanctions relief.
Lee yesterday said that the international community “cannot abandon the goal of denuclearization” of North Korea.
“The key point President Trump made was that it was unfortunate that possible measures had not been taken before North Korea became a nuclear-armed state,” he said.
“I also said that we can no longer deal with the North Korean nuclear issue in the same way we deal with other countries, and President Trump agreed,” Lee added.
Trump met Kim three times during his first term — once declaring they were “in love” — as he pushed to hammer out a long-coveted deal on denuclearization.
Lee said Trump told him that he wanted to pursue a new meeting with Kim “if there is a way to do so.”
Lee added that in a meeting at the Vatican this week he had invited Pope Leo XIV for a visit next year, to attend World Youth Day in Seoul.
“I also requested that a visit to North Korea be arranged, if possible, alongside a visit to the DMZ during his trip,” he said, referring to the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas.
“The pope responded that he would actively consider and pursue the matter,” Lee said.
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