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The top nuclear envoys of the US and South Korea have discussed ways to cooperate on countering North Korea’s “evolving nuclear and military threats,” the South Korean Foreign Ministry said on Sunday, according to local media.
US Special Representative for North Korea Sung Kim held a meeting with his South Korean counterpart Kim Gunn in Seoul on Tuesday on the sidelines of the Asan Plenum 2023 conference, a security forum hosted by a local think tank, the Yonhap news agency said.
The two sides, the Foreign Ministry statement said, shared their assessments of the current security situation on the Korean Peninsula and discussed “joint responses to North Korea’s nuclear threats.”
The envoys agreed to strengthen close coordination on Pyongyang to make it cease provocations and return to denuclearization talks, based on the agreements from the South Korea-US summit held in Washington last week, it added.
It was the third consultation between the two envoys this month, following a bilateral session in Seoul on April 6 and phone talks on April 13.
The meeting coincided with North Korea announcing that it would step up a counter “military deterrence” against longtime rivals South Korea and the US in response to a nuclear and strategic information-sharing agreement between the two allies.
It denounced this week’s summit agreement between the two sides on strengthening the US’ extended deterrence as a “product of heinous hostile policy” against Pyongyang, the state media reported on Sunday.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) ran a commentary criticizing President Yoon Suk Yeol’s state visit to the US this week as “the most hostile, aggressive, and provocative trip, and a dangerous one for a nuclear war.”
Yoon met with President Joe Biden in Washington and announced the adoption of the Washington Declaration, under which the US will share information on nuclear and strategic operations and planning and regularly deploy strategic assets to South Korea.
“The ‘Washington Declaration’ on raising the practicality of the ‘extended deterrence’ provided by the US is a typical product of the heinous hostile policy towards the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea),” the KCNA said in an English-language commentary.
“The dangerous nuclear war moves of the US and the puppet group running amuck in stifling the DPRK while denying the existence of the DPRK can never be pardoned and they will have to pay dearly for their rash acts,” it said.
Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, on Saturday, condemned the Washington Declaration as reflecting “the most hostile and aggressive will of action” by Seoul and Washington and warned the allies’ plan will only result in “more serious danger.”
