South Korea Should Consider Developing Nuclear Weapons, Says Top Lawmaker
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A prominent South Korean official on Tuesday said his country should consider matching the North’s nuclear work step-by-step, or bring back a former U.S. arsenal, as a way to deter its belligerent neighbour.
Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Conference, Chung Mong Joon, a billionaire businessman and former presidential candidate, said South Korea has the right to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty as the latest crisis on the Korean peninsula showed that diplomacy has failed with Pyongyang.
A prominent South Korean official on Tuesday said his country should consider matching the North’s nuclear work step-by-step, or bring back a former U.S. arsenal, as a way to deter its belligerent neighbour.
Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Conference, Chung Mong Joon, a billionaire businessman and former presidential candidate, said South Korea has the right to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty as the latest crisis on the Korean peninsula showed that diplomacy has failed with Pyongyang.
Only North Korea has ever pulled out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which was signed in 1970 with an aim of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. India, Israel and Pakistan never signed the treaty.
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“The lesson of the Cold War is that against nuclear weapons, only nuclear weapons can hold the peace,” Chung said, citing the previous long-standing nuclear stand-off between the Western allies and the Soviet bloc.
“It would send a clear warning that, by continuing its nuclear program, North Korea is releasing the nuclear genie in East Asia,” Chung added. “North Korea – and for that matter China as well – should know that South Korea has this option if it persists in possessing nuclear weapons.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters at a daily news on Tuesday that China does not wish to see an escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula after North Korea warned foreigners in the South to exit the country because of the risk of war.
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Tension has been fuelled by North Korean anger over the imposition of UN sanctions after its last nuclear arms test in February, creating one of the worst periods of tension on the peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
According to Chung, the United States also has the option to return to South Korea the nuclear weapons which it withdrew in 1991 at the end of the Cold War against the Soviet Union – a view endorsed by several U.S. Republicans.
The nuclearisation of a close U.S. ally would set back a longstanding, albeit repeatedly violated, principle of granting nuclear status to new members at a time when Washington is pressuring Iran over its controversial nuclear enrichment program.
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Washington has vowed to protect South Korea and Japan under its nuclear umbrella.
“Telling us not to consider any nuclear option is tantamount to telling us to simply surrender,” Chung said.
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