They met amid growing tensions in Asia with North Korea.
Advertisement
The THAAD system will be installed by the end of next year to defend South Korea against nuclear and missile threats from North Korea as Seoul and Washington claim.
Ri Yong Ho’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly was marked by frequent condemnations of US policy and U.N. sanctions against North Korea, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported. But as part of this effort, Washington is not ready to negotiate its deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) anti-missile defence system in South Korea, a senior USA diplomat for Asia has said.
He blamed the United States and “its hostile policy” against North Korea.
He was referring to the THAAD missile defense system that the US plans to deploy to South Korea to defend against North Korean missile threats.
“Going nuclear armed is the policy of our state”, Ri, who has been foreign minister since May, told the world gathering.
Mr Ri said: “The United States will have to face tremendous consequences beyond imagination”.
“As long as there exists a nuclear weapon state in hostile relations with the DPRK (North Korea), our national security and the peace on the Korean peninsula can be defended only with reliable nuclear deterrence”, he said.
Military experts are anxious that North Korea is moving closer toward obtaining the ability to put nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles.
Beijing has said it will work within the United Nations to formulate a necessary response to the latest nuclear test, but questions remain as to whether it is willing to agree tough enough steps to force North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons.
The foreign minister also denounced U.N. Security Council sanctions Resolution 2270 and asked why other nuclear weapons states have never been sanctioned. Ri described the nuclear program as a “righteous self-defense measure”.
Ri dismissed the Security Council resolutions as unfair. “South Korea has a general idea and plan to use precision missile capabilities to target the enemy’s facilities in major areas as well as eliminating the enemy’s leadership”.
Advertisement
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe demanded that the world find a new way to confront Pyongyang after a decade of United Nations sanctions failed to change its behavior. “It demands a new means of addressing it, altogether different from what we applied until yesterday”.
