SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol said the country was prepared in its alliance with the United States to strike back if North Korea attempted a nuclear attack against it, Newsweek reported on Friday.
Yoon also said South Korea could rely on U.S. nuclear weapons to defend the country and did not need its own, according to the U.S. magazine.
“I believe that it would be irrational for them to decide to wage a nuclear attack against the Republic of Korea and should they do so the nuclear-based ROK-U.S. alliance will immediately strike North Korea with the U.S. nuclear weapon,” Newsweek cited Yoon as saying.
North Korea flexed its military muscle with the test of a huge new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile dubbed Hwasong-19 on Oct. 31, amid accusations from Washington and Seoul that it has deployed troops to aid Russia in Ukraine.
Yoon, a conservative, has taken a harder line than his recent predecessors on North Korea, which has forged ahead with developing its arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
Seoul is seeking to continue improving relations with Washington, building on the 70-year security alliance that is under fresh focus after former U.S. President Donald Trump won re-election to the White House.
The two Koreas are still technically at war after their 1950-53 war ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
(Reporting by Cynthia Kim; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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