The re-election of Trump as president could also weaken protection from the US, said South Korea’s deputy national security director.
A new-type 600mm rocket launcher developed by the Defense Industrial Corporation, taken at an undisclosed location in North Korea on Sept 13.
South Korea’s deputy national security director Kim Tae-hyo said during a forum on Sept 3 that the re-election of Trump could “weaken the US nuclear umbrella”. South Korea had given up its nuclear weapons development programme in 1975 when it joined the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty , which prohibits the development of nuclear weapons.
A poll by the Korea Institute for National Unification released in late June showed that nearly 66 per cent of South Koreans supported the idea of the country having its own nuclear weapons. More than half of respondents believed that US-South Korea ties would deteriorate if Trump returns to office.
“Under the Yoon administration, our alliance with the US has been elevated to a ‘nuclear-based’ alliance. We respond to North Korean nuclear threats based on the US nuclear umbrella and extended deterrence – that’s the bottom line,” he had told reporters. As North Korea continues to build its nuclear arsenal and increases its rhetorical threats against the South, Seoul’s senior officials’ recent comments could be a way of preparing the public for the possibility of the country developing nuclear weapons should the crisis with the North worsen or the US-South Korea alliance degrade dramatically, said International Politics Professor Mason Richey from Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
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