News / Koreas

South Korea must build own nukes: Senior lawmaker

Monday, 15 February 2016 6:13 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 15 February 2016 6:12 AM ]

This picture, released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on February 7, 2016, shows a rocket launch at an undisclosed location in North Korea. (Via AP)

A senior lawmaker in South Korea has demanded that Seoul develop its own nuclear armaments in the face of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Won Yoo-cheol, the ruling Saenuri Party’s floor leader, said on Monday that the US should redeploy its nuclear weapons in South Korea in the wake of Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear test in January.

He suggested, however, that South Korea needed to build its own weapons.
“We cannot borrow an umbrella from a neighbor every time it rains. We need to have a raincoat and wear it ourselves,” Won said in a speech at the National Assembly.

He was making a reference to the nuclear umbrella that the US has been providing South Korea since withdrawing its tactical nuclear weapons from the Asian country in 1991.

In an effort to reassure officials in Seoul, the US sent a nuclear-capable B-52 bomber over South Korea shortly after the North’s nuclear test on January 6.

The two Koreas agreed in a landmark 1991 deal to keep the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free, though North Korea has been pursuing its nuclear weapons programs. Won said Pyongyang’s nuclear tests have rendered the denuclearization principle in that deal “meaningless.”

North Korea declared itself a nuclear power in 2005 and carried out four nuclear weapon tests in 2006, 2009, 2013 and 2016. It also launched a rocket on February 7, which some countries believe was a disguised ballistic missile test.

North Korea says that it is developing a nuclear arsenal in an effort to protect itself from the US military, which occasionally deploys nuclear-powered warships and aircraft capable of carrying atomic weapons in the region.

The Korean Peninsula has been locked in a cycle of military rhetoric since the 1950-1953 Korean War, which ended in an armistice. No peace deal has been signed since then, meaning that Pyongyang and Seoul remain technically at war.

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