SEOUL – The leader of South Korea’s main opposition party warned that calls for acquiring nuclear weapons could grow in Seoul if U. S. talks with…
SEOUL – The leader of South Korea’s main opposition party warned that calls for acquiring nuclear weapons could grow in Seoul if U. S. talks with North Korea fell short of the regime’s complete denuclearization.
Liberty Korea legislative leader Na Kyung-Won said in an interview in Seoul that a “small deal” with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un risked bolstering demands for the U. S. to redeploy its own nuclear weapons to the peninsula. She said she planned to convey her party’s desire for the dismantlement and inspection of Pyongyang’s weapons program during an expected visit to Washington ahead of U. S. President Donald Trump’s planned summit with Kim.
“If the United States accepts North Korea as the de facto nuclear state through a small deal, acquiring nuclear weapons is the only viable path for us, some people argue,” Na, 55, said Thursday. “With a small deal, demand for deploying strategic nuclear weapons will increase.”
Na’s remarks illustrate concern among South Korean conservatives as President Moon Jae-in, a progressive, pushes ties between the rivals to unprecedented levels. The opposition, which is trying to rebuild after former President Park Geun-hye’s 2017 removal and subsequent corruption conviction, has long taken a more skeptical view of Kim’s intentions.
