Blinken reiterates the U.S. commitment to defending Korea

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, second from left, with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin, second from right, during their meeting in Washington on Friday. [FOREIGN MINISTRY]

The United States remains committed to using all of its military capabilities, including nuclear, to defend South Korea, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday after talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin.

“We are committed to defending the Republic of Korea using the full range of our capabilities — nuclear, conventional missile defense capabilities,” Blinken said at a press conference with Park.

“There should be no doubt in anyone's mind, starting with Pyongyang, of our commitment to defend our allies, our partners, our friends, and to extended deterrence.”

Extended deterrence refers to the U.S. pledge to use all of its military capabilities to defend South Korea in the event of an attack.

Public surveys in South Korea show high support for the development of a nuclear weapons amid doubts about the U.S. extended deterrence commitment .

Pyongyang fired 70 missiles in 2022 alone, its highest number in a single year.

The North also passed legislation in September that permits the country’s military to strike first with nuclear weapons in the event that a threat of an imminent attack on its leadership is detected.

That law, as well as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s pronouncements in April that his regime would pursue the development of smaller, tactical nuclear weapons to be deployed at frontline military units, has led many in the South to doubt that Pyongyang has any intent to denuclearize.

In his remarks, Blinken called the South Korean-U.S. alliance “the linchpin of peace, stability and prosperity in the region," adding that it "is poised to grow stronger still.”

Park said the allies remain determined to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

“Secretary Blinken and I also reaffirmed our unwavering determination to denuclearize North Korea,” Park said. “Peace without denuclearization is fake peace.”

Park’s comments are in contrast to the approach of the Moon Jae-in administration, which in its waning months sought an “end-of-war declaration” with Pyongyang that was not conditional on the North’s denuclearization.

Moon’s initiative drew a lukewarm response from Washington.

Park said the allies will also work to “close loopholes” in United Nations Security Council resolutions on North Korea and cut off sources of revenue for the North’s illicit weapons programs, which include cyber theft, particularly of cryptocurrencies.

Park added the allies are also discussing a possible summit between South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden, but told reporters after the joint conference that “nothing has been fixed yet.”

Diplomatic sources told the JoongAng Ilbo on condition of anonymity that the allies are aiming to hold a summit next month at the earliest, or at least in the first half of the year.

If held, the summit between Yoon and Biden would be the second summit between the two leaders since their first in Seoul in May 2022, shortly after Yoon took office.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]