International tension shows no signs of abating. US President Joe Biden has warned that a nuclear strike by North Korea would lead to the “end” of Kim Jong-un’s regime. The threat emerged during the joint press conference with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at the end of the meeting at the White House: the United States will respond to any North Korean nuclear attack, assured the South Korean president in turn. “A North Korean nuclear strike against the United States or its allies is unacceptable and will lead to the end of any regime that perpetuates such action,” Biden assured at the end of the bilateral meeting. It is one of the toughest messages the US president has sent to North Korea since he came to power in January 2021.
Biden and Yoon also signed an agreement today to increase their military cooperation against North Korea and allow a nuclear-armed American submarine to dock on the Korean peninsula for the first time in 40 years. The pact, the so-called Washington Declaration, also provides for the creation of a bilateral consultation mechanism that will allow Seoul to actively participate in US plans to respond to any nuclear incident in the region, including a hypothetical North Korean attack. However, the agreement does not provide for the deployment of nuclear warheads on the peninsula. The United States removed its last nuclear warheads from the Korean peninsula in 1991, when the two Koreas agreed in a joint declaration not to produce or deploy nuclear weapons, an agreement that Pyongyang has repeatedly violated. During the Cold War in the 1970s, US nuclear submarines frequently visited South Korean ports, up to two or three times a month, but stopped in the 1980s.
In general terms, the agreement seeks to reassure Seoul in the face of the advance of North Korea’s nuclear program and after the turbulent presidency of Donald Trump, who had threatened to withdraw American troops from South Korea. However, the Pyongyang regime has refused and South Korea has offered to resume talks and has also conducted several weapons tests over the past two years, even experimenting with ICBMs that could hit US cities.
Source: IL Tempo
John Cameron is a journalist at The Nation View specializing in world news and current events, particularly in international politics and diplomacy. With expertise in international relations, he covers a range of topics including conflicts, politics and economic trends.
