Seoul talks with US on management of nukes underway

Seoul, The Gulf Observer: South Korea reconfirmed Tuesday that Seoul and Washington are discussing its involvement in U.S. nuclear asset management in the face of intensifying North Korean nuclear threats, after President Joe Biden denied that the allies were discussing joint nuclear exercises.

The difference came after North Korean leader Kim Jong entered the new year with a vow to mass-produce battlefield nuclear weapons targeting South Korea and introduce a more powerful intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the mainland U.S. Some experts say Kim would eventually aim to use his enlarged weapons arsenal to wrest outside concessions like sanctions relief.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said in a newspaper interview published Monday that the two countries were pushing for a joint planning and training involving U.S. nuclear assets and that the United States responded positively about the idea.

Asked by a reporter later at the White House about whether the two countries were discussing joint nuclear exercises, Biden replied, “No.”

Yoon’s spokesperson, Kim Eun-hye, issued a statement Tuesday saying that Seoul and Washington “are discussing an intel-sharing, a joint planning and subsequent joint action plans over the management of U.S. nuclear assets in response to North Korea’s nuclear (threats).”

Kim Taewoo, a former head of Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification, said the reported South Korea-U.S. discussion likely “benchmarked a NATO-style nuclear-sharing arrangement” that allows NATO member states’ warplanes to carry U.S. nuclear weapons. He said the discussion still appears to be falling short of the NATO arrangement because possible nuclear exercises between the two countries would likely be South Korean air force aircraft escorting U.S. aircraft practicing nuclear strikes during joint drills.

“North Korea would take this sensitively. South Korea and the U.S. are discussing this to get North Korea to take this sensitively because that can be a deterrence against North Korea,” Kim Taewoo said.

He said South Korea and the United Sates are likely using unofficial channels to discuss the topic. That allows South Korea to claim it’s discussing the issue with the U.S. at the same time it allows Washington to deny that, he said.

Last year, North Korea performed a record number of weapons tests by launching a variety of ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland and its allies South Korea and Japan. In September, North Korea also adopted a new law authorizing the preemptive use of its bombs in a broad range of cases, including non-war scenarios.

During a recently ended ruling party meeting, Kim Jong Un ordered the “exponential” expansion of his country’s nuclear arsenal and the mass-production of tactical nuclear weapons missioned with attacking South Korea, as well as the development of a new ICBM tasked with having a “quick nuclear counterstrike” capability — a weapon he needs to strike the mainland, North Korea’s state media reported Sunday.