North Korea has been testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles at an unprecedented rate this year under leader Kim Jong Un.
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Yun will meet trilaterally on Sunday with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida in NY to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear issue.
Kerry and the foreign ministers met on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – following a two-day meeting in Washington released a joint statement Thursday that “strongly condemned” North Korea’s nuclear tests on January 6 and September 9, in violation of the UN Security Council resolutions.
The Japan-Korea GSOMIA was canceled in 2012 due to South Korean domestic opposition, but more South Korean experts are supporting the agreement in the wake of North Korea’s multiple provocations. “As the key stakeholders in this nuclear conundrum, the three of us will continue to muster the collective will of the global community to this end”.
He said the U.S., Japan, South Korea and others would “make it clear to a reckless dictator that all he is doing through his actions is isolating his country, isolating his people and depriving his people of genuine economic opportunity”. Kerry said. “We are going to continue on our course”.
The U.N. Security Council now is considering further sanctions against the North.
The United States has said it is willing to negotiate with the North if the country commits to denuclearization, which Pyongyang has refused to do. Led by U.S. Senator Jon Tester of Montana, Heitkamp and a bipartisan group of colleagues called on leaders of the House and the Senate Armed Services Committees to include critical provisions related to ICBM modernization and upgrades to nuclear-armed cruise missiles in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act.
Earlier this month North Korea successfully launched another nuclear test, reinforcing that a robust nuclear deterrent is key to maintaining national security. The North also recently tested ballistic missiles in its effort to find a delivery system to strike the United States.
“They are bluffing that B-1Bs are enough for fighting an all-out nuclear war”, according to a statement from the Korean Central News Agency.
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In their letter to Armed Services Committee leadership this month, the senators emphasized that modernizing our nuclear triad is needed to make sure the US can deter any aggression by adversaries like North Korea.
