According to claims made by his South Korean counterpart, President Yoon Suk-yeol, who claimed that Washington and Seoul were in discussions about drills using US nuclear assets, US President Joe Biden has stated that the US and South Korea are not currently contemplating joint nuclear exercises.
In a newspaper interview, the president of South Korea stated that negotiations between Seoul and Washington over cooperative planning and drills involving US nuclear assets to confront North Korea’s nuclear threats were ongoing.
Biden denied that he was currently contemplating joint nuclear exercises with South Korea when asked by reporters at the White House on Monday.
In an interview that was published in the Chosun Ilbo newspaper on Monday, President Yoon made remarks that come at a time of rising tension with North Korea, which test-fired an unprecedented number of ballistic missiles in 2022 and has vowed to vehemently oppose what it perceives as military preparations by the US and South Korea for a potential invasion.
Yoon has adopted a more assertive approach in response to North Korea’s sabre rattling and has called for “war preparedness” with “overwhelming” capacity.
The ability of the US military, notably its nuclear assets, to deter assaults on US allies is referred to as “extended deterrence,” and according to Yoon, cooperative planning and drills will be targeted at improving its execution.
Yoon told the newspaper that Seoul wants to participate in the operation of US nuclear forces in order to better counter North Korea’s nuclear threats.
Yoon said, adding that Washington is also “very pleased” about the notion, “The nuclear weapons belong to the United States, but planning, information sharing, exercises, and training should be jointly done by South Korea and the United States.”
According to South Korea’s Yonhap press agency, Yoon’s senior press secretary Kim Eun-hye stated on Tuesday that Biden had to refuse when asked such a direct question on such a delicate subject.
President Biden “clearly had to respond ‘No’ when the Reuters reporter asked him point blank if joint nuclear drills were being discussed,” Kim stated in a statement, according to Yonhap.
In relation to the operation of US nuclear assets to counter North Korea’s nuclear weapons, South Korea and the US are in discussions about information-sharing, cooperative planning, and the joint implementation plans that follow, she said.
The statements coming out of Seoul and Washington seemed to be in conflict with one another.
When stating to the news agency Reuters that joint nuclear drills were not being planned with South Korea because Seoul was not a nuclear power, a senior Biden administration official seemed to provide some clarification.
According to the person, according to Reuters, the US and South Korea were eventually considering improved intelligence sharing, increasing contingencies, and table-top exercises.
According to Thomas Countryman, the former acting undersecretary of state for arms control who presided over the first round of the dialogue, the US has had an extended deterrence discussion to discuss nuclear concerns with Japan for a long time and started a similar dialogue with South Korea in 2016.
In a phone interview on Monday, Countryman said, “It’s not immediately evident what in President Yoon’s remark is new and what is a rephrasing of things that are already happening.”
Countryman claimed that Yoon’s remarks appeared to be a response to what he called North Korea’s provocations and rhetoric and were meant at the people of South Korea.
I do believe that President Yoon and the Biden administration are making an effort to convince the South Korean government and people that the US commitment is still steadfast.
Kim Jong Un announced new military objectives and declared South Korea to be a “undoubted adversary” at a Workers’ Party gathering in North Korea last week, alluding to another year of intense weapons testing and conflict.
Since Yoon assumed office in May and pledged to take a stronger position against North Korea, inter-Korean relations, which have always been tense, have become even more strained.
Following the launch of three ballistic missiles on Saturday, North Korea conducted an unusual late-night New Year’s Day weapons test on Sunday by launching a short-range ballistic missile off its east coast.
