By Ankit Panda
The chairman of South Korea’s ruling party implied North Korea could be recognized as a nuclear power.
Contradicting the long-standing policies of both the South Korean government and the United States, Kim Moo-sung, chairman of South Korea’s ruling Saenuri Party, told a meeting of college students that North Korea could be recognized and treated as a “nuclear power.”
“Internationally, a country could be recognized as a nuclear power if it carries out two to three nuclear tests,” Kim told a group of students in Busan, South Korea.
North Korea, per its constitution, considers itself a nuclear state and regularly threatens to use nuclear weapons to strike back at any foreign aggressor, including South Korea and the United States.
U.S. and South Korean officials take North Korea’s nuclear program seriously and acknowledge a real nuclear threat from North Korea.
For example, in a recent U.S. Senate testimony, U.S. Admiral Cecil D. Haney remarked that U.S. Strategic Command had credible reasons to believe that North Korea had succeeded in miniaturizing a nuclear device for delivery.
Haney’s comments, and remarks by South Korean officials in the past, suggest a de facto recognition of a North Korean nuclear capability.
Formally recognizing North Korea’s nuclear ability would effectively put an end to any hopes of negotiating a path toward denuclearization on the Korean peninsula.
Read the full story at The Diplomat