By Oyintari Ben
According to US officials, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and US President Joe Biden are likely to agree to expand their cooperation in order to prevent North Korea from escalating its nuclear program in the face of mounting concern over its expanding arsenal of missiles and bombs.
The allies are using the first official state visit by a South Korean leader in more than ten years to convey a warning to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in addition to the pomp and ceremony the White House has planned.
The two are anticipated to come to terms on a new Washington Declaration that will provide South Korea specific access to and input into US contingency planning to prevent and address any nuclear disaster in the region through a US-ROK Nuclear Consultative Group.
Senior US administration officials told reporters in a briefing call that while the allies will declare that diplomacy with North Korea is the preferred course of action, Washington will announce it will send imposing military technology, including a ballistic-missile submarine, to South Korea as a show of force.
According to them, this will be a submarine’s first visit since the 1980s.
The authorities made it clear that South Korea would not regain control of the US nuclear arsenal and that no nuclear weapons from the US would ever be brought back to the peninsula.
They added that South Korea would reaffirm its non-nuclear status and adherence to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
A senior Biden administration official stated, “This is modeled after what we did with European allies during the height of the Cold War in comparable periods of potential external threat.”
The official also said that the US is informing China in advance of the actions as a gesture toward efforts to defuse the current situation in the region.
Yoon’s six-day tour takes place as Seoul and Washington commemorate their 70-year.
