Politics

Biden: Nuke attack by Pyongyang will mean destruction of North Korea

Washington, Apr 26 (EFE).- President Joe Biden said Wednesday that a North Korean nuclear attack on the United States or its allies would lead to the destruction of the government in Pyongyang.

He issued that warning during a joint press conference at the White House with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol.

“A nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies and partners is unacceptable, and will result in the end of whatever regime were to take such an action,” Biden said, without mentioning Kim Jong-un, the current leader of the country officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The US and South Korean presidents presented an agreement, the Washington Declaration, that calls for enhanced bilateral military cooperation against the background of stepped-up missile testing by Pyongyang.

One aspect of the plan involves including Seoul in Washington’s planning for responding to any nuclear incident in North Asia, but the provision most likely to draw the ire of the DPRK is an agreement for US nuclear-armed submarines to dock in South Korea.

US subs equipped with nuclear-tipped missiles used to visit South Korean ports two or three times a month, but the last such deployment was more than 40 years ago.

Biden was careful to emphasize that the missiles will remain on the subs.

“We are not going to be stationing nuclear weapons on the peninsula,” he said.

Yoon’s state visit coincides with the 70th anniversary of the alliance the US and South Korea struck at the conclusion of the 1950-1953 war on the peninsula, which claimed some 3 million lives, many of them civilians.

“The alliance formed in war and has flourished in peace,” Biden said at the White House. “Our mutual defense treaty is ironclad and that includes our commitment to extend a deterrence – and that includes the nuclear threat, the nuclear deterrent.”

Extending deterrence is “particularly important in the face of DPRK’s increased threats and the blatant violation of US sanctions,” he said.

North Korea’s intensified schedule of missile launches has included experiments with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) theoretically capable of reaching the US. EFE

bpm/dr

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