SEOUL, South Korea - South Korean President
Yoon Suk Yeol
said for the first time Wednesday that if North Korea's nuclear threat escalates, South Korea would consider building
its own nuclear weapons
or asking
United States United States
to deploy them on the Korean peninsula.
Speaking at a joint briefing by the defense and foreign ministries, Yoon was quick to add that building nuclear weapons was not yet official policy.
He stressed that, for the time being, South Korea would deal with the North Korean nuclear threat by strengthening its alliance with the United States.
North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un delivers a speech during a Workers' Party meeting in Pyongyang, North Korea, Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. (Korea Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
This policy includes seeking ways to increase the
reliability
of Washington's commitment to protect its ally with all its defense capabilities, including nuclear weapons.
Yoon's comments mark the first time since the United States withdrew all its nuclear weapons from the South in 1991 that a South Korean president has officially mentioned arming the country with nuclear weapons.
Washington withdrew its nuclear weapons from South Korea as part of its global
nuclear arms reduction efforts.
"It is possible that the problem will get worse and our country will either introduce tactical nuclear weapons or build them on its own," Yoon said, according to a transcript of his remarks released by his office.
"If that's the case, we can have
our own
nuclear weapons pretty quickly, given our scientific and technological capabilities."
South Korea is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, which prohibits the country from seeking nuclear weapons.
It also signed a joint declaration with North Korea in 1991 in which both Koreas agreed not to "test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons."
But North Korea has breached the deal by conducting six nuclear tests since 2006.
Years of negotiations have failed to remove a single nuclear warhead from the North.
(US and South Korean officials say North Korea could conduct another nuclear test, its seventh, at any time.)
As North Korea has promised to expand its nuclear arsenal and threatened to use it against the South in recent months, voices have grown in South Korea - among analysts and within Yoon's ruling conservative People's Power Party - calling for South Korea to
reconsider
the nuclear option.
Yoon's comments this week are likely to fuel these debates.
Opinion polls in recent years have shown that most South Koreans support either the United States deploying nuclear weapons in the South or the country building
its own arsenal.
Policy makers in Seoul, South Korea, have rejected this option for decades, arguing that America's so-called nuclear protection would keep the country safe from North Korea.
"President Yoon's comment could become a defining moment in South Korea's national security history," said Cheon Seong-whun, former director of the Korea Institute for National Unification, a Seoul-funded think tank. government.
"It could change their paradigm on
how to deal with
the North Korean nuclear threat."
Calls for nuclear weapons have surged in South Korea over the decades, but have never gained traction beyond casual pundits and right-wing politicians.
Under its former military dictator Park Chung-hee, South Korea embarked on a covert nuclear weapons program in the 1970s, when the United States began to
reduce its military presence in the South
, making its population feel vulnerable to attacks. North Korean attacks.
Washington forced him to abandon the program, promising to keep the ally under its nuclear umbrella.
Washington still maintains
28,500 US troops
in South Korea as a symbol of the alliance.
But in recent months, North Korea has continued to test missiles, some of them designed to deliver nuclear warheads to the South.
Many South Koreans have wondered if the United States would stop North Korea from attacking their country, especially at the risk of leaving US cities and military bases in the Asia-Pacific region more vulnerable to nuclear attack.
Washington's repeated promise to protect its ally - with its own nuclear weapons, if necessary -
has not allayed that fear.
In its 2022 Nuclear Posture Review, a document outlining Washington's nuclear policy for the next five to 10 years, the Pentagon itself noted the "deterrence dilemmas" the North posed to the United States.
"A crisis or conflict on the Korean peninsula could involve multiple actors with nuclear weapons, increasing the risk of a broader conflict," it said.
"If South Korea possesses nuclear weapons, the United States will not have to wonder whether to use its own nuclear weapons to defend its ally, and the alliance will never be put to the test," said Cheong Seong-chang, an analyst at the Sejong Institute of Korea. from the south.
"If South Korea has nuclear weapons, the United States will actually be safer."
By declaring its intention to acquire nuclear weapons, South Korea could force North Korea to
rethink its own
nuclear weapons program and possibly prompt China to pressure North Korea to roll back its program, Cheong said.
China
has long feared a regional nuclear arms race in East Asia.
South Korea would have to leave the NPT to build its own arsenal.
Analysts say leaving the NPT would be too risky for the South because it could trigger international sanctions.
Some lawmakers affiliated with Yoon's party and analysts like Cheon want the United States to reintroduce US nuclear weapons to the South and forge a shared nuclear deal with Seoul, similar to the one that would allow NATO planes to carry US nuclear weapons in wartime. .
The US Embassy had no immediate comment on Yoon's statement.
Washington's official policy is to make the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free, fearing that if Seoul were to build nuclear weapons, it could trigger a regional arms race and eliminate any hope of ridding North Korea of its nuclear weapons.
Yoon himself reiterated on Thursday that his country remained committed to the NPT, at least for now.
He said on Wednesday - and his Defense Ministry reiterated on Thursday - that the "most realistic means" of
countering the North Korean threat
would be
joint deterrence
with the United States.
His government announced that the allies will hold simulation exercises starting next month to test their combined capabilities to deal with a North Korean nuclear attack and help reaffirm Washington's commitment to its ally.
Yoon also said his army will push its own "mass punishment and retaliation" program, arming itself with more powerful missiles and other conventional weapons to threaten the Northern leadership.
Tensions have been rising in Korea in recent weeks as the Yoon government responded to the North's provocations with its own escalating measures, such as sending in fighter jets in response to the North's drones.
"We must crush the North's desire to provoke," he declared on Wednesday.
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