The United States and South Korea are promoting joint security cooperation this Wednesday (04.26.2023) to face possible attacks by North Korea. In the deal, the United States promises to send a ballistic submarine to South Korea to make its deterrent capabilities “more visible.”
A senior US official explained anonymously in a call that the “occasional” deployment of this submarine is something that “hasn’t happened since the 1980s.” He also added that this cooperation “in many ways is inspired by what we did with our European allies during the Cold War.”
The agreement stipulated as the Washington Declaration was announced in the framework of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s visit to the White House in Washington. This is in order to create a bilateral consultation mechanism so that the South Korean authorities have a “greater knowledge” of the US plans. The cooperation arises in response to the numerous launches of ballistic missiles this year by the Korean government from the North.
For its part, Seoul pledges not to seek the development of a nuclear weapon, and to scrupulously comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which the country ratified in 1975.
