The United States isn’t discussing joint nuclear workout routines with South Korea, President Joe Biden stated on Monday, contradicting remarks by his South Korean counterpart as tensions flare with North Korea.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol had stated that Seoul and Washington are discussing doable joint workout routines utilizing US nuclear property, whereas North Korean chief Kim Jong Un branded the South its “undoubted enemy”.

“No,” Biden stated when requested by reporters on the White House if he was at present discussing joint nuclear workout routines with South Korea. He had simply returned from a trip within the US Virgin Islands, the place he was accompanied by his nationwide safety adviser, Jake Sullivan.

Yoon’s feedback, in a newspaper interview printed on Monday, adopted his name for “conflict preparation” with an “overwhelming” functionality, after a yr of a file variety of North Korean missile assessments and the intrusion of North Korean drones into the South final week.

“The nuclear weapons belong to the United States, however planning, info sharing, workout routines and coaching needs to be collectively performed by South Korea and the United States,” Yoon said in the interview with the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

The newspaper quoted Yoon as saying the joint planning and exercises would be aimed at a more effective implementation of the US “extended deterrence” and that Washington was additionally “fairly constructive” about the idea.

The term “extended deterrence” means the flexibility of the US army, notably its nuclear forces, to discourage assaults on American allies.

The United States has lengthy had an prolonged deterrence dialogue with Japan to speak about nuclear points and initiated the identical dialogue with South Korea in 2016, stated Thomas Countryman, the previous appearing undersecretary of state for arms management, who chaired the dialogue’s first assembly.

“It’s not instantly clear what in President Yoon’s assertion is new and what’s a rephrasing of issues which might be already taking place,” Countryman said on Monday in a phone interview.

Now board chairman of the Arms Control Association, Countryman said Yoon’s comments, directed at the South Korean people, appeared to be in response to what Countryman called North Korea’s provocations and rhetoric.

“I do see this as an effort by both President Yoon and the Biden administration to reassure the government and the people of South Korea, that the US commitment remains solid.”

Yoon’s remarks had been printed a day after North Korean state media reported that its chief Kim had known as for growing new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and an “exponential improve” of the country’s nuclear arsenal.

At a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party last week, Kim said South Korea had become the North’s “undoubted enemy” and rolled out new army objectives, hinting at one other yr of intensive weapons assessments and stress.

Inter-Korean ties have lengthy been testy however have been much more frayed since Yoon took workplace in May, promising a harder stance on the North.

On Sunday, North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile off its east coast, in a uncommon late-night, New Year’s Day weapons take a look at, following three ballistic missiles launched on Saturday.

The North’s official KCNA information company stated the projectiles had been fired from its super-large a number of rocket launcher system, which Kim stated “has South Korea as an entire throughout the vary of strike and is able to carrying tactical nuclear warheads.”

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(This story has not been edited by News18 employees and is printed from a syndicated information company feed)