South Korean President Moon Jae-in delivers his speech on the 2018 budget bill during a plenary session at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, November 1, 2017. Yonhap via REUTERS
Washington Post: South Korea will not develop or possess nuclear weapons, president says
President Moon Jae-in told lawmakers Wednesday that South Korea would not seek to have nuclear weapons and said that Seoul would never accept its neighbor North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.
“According to the joint agreement by the two Koreas on denuclearization, North Korea’s nuclear state cannot be accepted or tolerated. We will not develop or possess nuclear weapons either,” the president said in his second state of the nation address at the National Assembly, South Korea’s parliament.
Recent tests by North Korea have led to a renewed debate about nuclear weapons in South Korea. Although the country once sought its own nuclear weapons in the 1970s during the presidency of Park Chung-hee, leaders were persuaded by the United States to abandon such ambitions.
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Update #1: South Korean President Moon Jae-in rules out developing nuclear weapons to guard against threat from Pyongyang (AFP)
Update #2: South Korea's Moon says cannot recognize North Korea as nuclear state (CNBC/Reuters)
WNU Editor: The South Korean President can stick his head in the sand and decide not to accept North Korean as a nuclear state .... but the fact is that North Korea is a nuclear state, whether he likes it or not.
