President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol have warned North Korea that it will face a nuclear response and the “end” of its leadership if it uses its own nuclear arsenal. The two leaders emphasized that the US security shield for South Korea was being strengthened in the face of the nuclear-armed North’s aggressive missile tests. They made it clear that if North Korea attacks South Korea or the United States, the response will be devastating.
During a joint press conference at the White House, Biden stated that “a nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies… will result in the end of whatever regime were to take such an action.” Yoon said his priority was to secure peace through “superiority of overwhelming forces and not a false peace based on the goodwill of the other side.”
Yoon and Biden issued what was titled the Washington Declaration, which bolsters the US nuclear umbrella over South Korea. This includes a mechanism for the two countries to share information and consult in the event of a North Korean attack. The US will retain full control over nuclear weapons. It will also see more integration of South Korea’s conventional military with US nuclear forces.
The US official said initial steps would include “regular deployment of strategic assets, including a US nuclear ballistic submarine visit to South Korea, which has not happened since the early 1980s.” In addition to submarines, there will be a “regular cadence” of other major platforms, “including bombers or aircraft carriers,” the official said, emphasizing however that there will be “no basing of those assets and certainly not nuclear weapons.”
Yoon will address a joint session of Congress on Thursday and have lunch with US Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. On Friday, he will visit MIT and Harvard University in Boston before returning home on Saturday.
