South Korea and ASEAN countries must “join forces” to respond to North Korea’s nuclear threat, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol urged on Tuesday at the opening of a regional organization’s ASEAN summit in Jakarta.
North Korea’s missile launches pose “a direct and existential threat” not only to South Korea but also to its Southeast Asian allies, the South Korean leader said in an interview with Indonesian daily Kompas.
“At this time, the Republic of Korea and ASEAN must join forces to respond decisively and work closely together to denuclearize North Korea,” he added.
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Yoon Suk Yeol will meet his counterparts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Wednesday, parallel to a summit that opened in Jakarta on Tuesday.
He will also attend an East Asia summit on Thursday involving 18 countries, including the United States, China, Japan, India and Russia.
Yoon Suk Yeol’s comments come as Washington says North Korean leader Kim Jong Un plans to visit Russia to discuss arms sales from Pyongyang to Moscow for the war in Ukraine with President Vladimir Putin.
Already on Wednesday, the chief spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirby, expressed alarm at the rapid progress of these negotiations on future arms deliveries from Pyongyang to Moscow.
According to the New York Times, Mr. Putin wants to purchase artillery shells and anti-tank missiles from North Korea.
Mr. Kim, who was scheduled to travel to Vladivostok to meet Mr. Putin, according to The New York Times, would seek to acquire advanced technologies for satellites and submarines as well as food aid.
In a draft final communiqué of the ASEAN summit consulted by AFP, the bloc’s 10 countries believe the recent surge in intercontinental ballistic missile launches by North Korea represents a “worrying development” that threatens peace in the region.
Russia will be represented at the East Asia summit on Thursday by its Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.