Saturday May 22, 2021
Agreement with the USA
South Korea gains “missile sovereignty”
So far, South Korea’s missile program has been subject to restrictions. However, the country has now agreed with the protective power of the USA to lift these guidelines – also in view of the threat posed by North Korea. Talks with the regime there are currently on hold.
According to an agreement with its ally, the USA, South Korea will have greater freedom to expand its missile arsenal. At their meeting in Washington on Friday (local time), US President Joe Biden and his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae In agreed to lift the remaining guidelines on restrictions on missile development by South Korea. After consultations with the US, South Korea could “announce the end of its amended missile guidelines, and the presidents confirmed this decision,” said a joint statement.
Moon’s security advisor described the deal as restoring “missile sovereignty”. The guidelines go back to an agreement of 1979, according to which South Korea had to limit the range of its missiles to a maximum of 180 kilometers in order to obtain missiles and missile technology from the USA in return. In recent years, the guidelines had been relaxed several times in view of the nuclear dispute with North Korea. The range for military missiles was recently limited to a maximum of 800 kilometers.
Biden and Moon also discussed rapprochement with North Korea in Washington. Both heads of state said that full denuclearization of the Korean peninsula was their goal. They want to continue a dialogue with North Korea about its nuclear weapons program.
Biden emphasized that he was not planning a face-to-face meeting with Kim as long as it was not about concrete negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament. “I would not do what has been done in the recent past. I would not give him everything he wants – international recognition,” emphasized the US President, clearly referring to his predecessor Donald Trump and his meeting with North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un.
Pyongyang blocks calls
“We are both deeply concerned about the situation,” said Biden. He has “no illusions” about the difficulty of getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear arsenal after its predecessors failed. Moon welcomed Biden’s realistic, pragmatic approach. North Korea’s nuclear disarmament is the “most urgent joint task” of the US and South Korea, said the South Korean head of state.
North Korea has so far rejected US requests for diplomacy since Biden took over from Trump. Biden’s predecessor had met Kim several times and repeatedly praised him in the highest tones. However, there has been no tangible progress in the nuclear dispute. The ruler Kim still refuses to give up his nuclear weapons, but imposed a test ban. Speaking to Moon, Biden said that a State Department official, Sung Kim, would serve as the US special envoy to North Korea.
Second guest at the White House
The presidents also discussed China and Taiwan. “We shared the view that peace and stability are extremely important in Taiwan and have agreed to work together on this matter while taking into account the specifics of China-Taiwan relations,” said Moon.
In their conversation, Biden and Moon affirmed the strong alliance between the two countries, which had suffered severely during the reign of then President Trump, among other things, due to trade issues and the financing of the US armed forces stationed in South Korea. Moon was the second foreign leader to visit the White House after Japan’s Prime Minister since Biden took office in January.
On the subject of the coronavirus pandemic, the two statesmen agreed that the United States and South Korea would work together to provide vaccines in the Indo-Pacific region. The US will also provide the government in Seoul with corona vaccine for the South Korean military. It is about 550,000 soldiers, said Biden.
.