In recent months Pyongyang has carried out its sixth nuclear test – its most powerful by far – and launched missiles apparently capable of reaching much of the US mainland, raising concerns in Seoul about its security alliance with Washington.
“A push by North Korea to become a nuclear state cannot be accepted or tolerated,” Moon said in an address to parliament. “We also will not develop or own nuclear” arms.
South Korean media and opposition politicians have called for US tactical nuclear weapons, which were withdrawn from the peninsula in the 1990s, to be returned.
There should be no military action on the peninsula without our prior consent
Some have suggested that if Washington does not agree – Defence Secretary Jim Mattis expressed doubts about the concept in a visit at the weekend – Seoul should develop a nuclear capability of its own, in order to ensure what they dub a “balance of terror” on the peninsula.
But Moon said in his address that Seoul’s approach would be “based on the Joint Declaration to denuclearise the Korean peninsula declared by both Koreas” in 1992.
Then the two Koreas agreed not to develop nuclear arsenal on the flashpoint peninsula, and two years later the North forged an aid-for-denuclearisation deal with the US.
The 1994 deal fell apart in 2002 when the North walked out and resumed its atomic weapons programme after Washington raised suspicions Pyongyang was secretly pursuing nuclear arms.
Pyongyang carried out its first atomic test in 2006 and has made significant progress in its weapons technology under current leader Kim Jong-un, who has overseen four atomic blasts and numerous missile tests since inheriting power in 2011.
The North hails its nuclear arsenal as a “treasured sword” to protect itself from potential invasion by its “imperialist enemy” the US, but has threatened to bracket the US Pacific island of Guam with missiles.
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