MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th July, 2023) The top nuclear envoys of South Korea, the United States and Japan condemned North Korea's recent ballistic missile launch and discussed ways to deter Pyongyang's nuclear program during a meeting in Tokyo on Thursday, the Yonhap news agency reported, citing the South Korean Foreign Ministry.
During the talks, Kim Gunn, South Korean special envoy for peace and security on the Korean Peninsula, criticized Pyongyang for draining the country's very limited resources through its nuclear and missile programs, and said that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "has reached a dead end," the news agency reported.
"Kim Jong-un thought that by heightening threats of a nuclear attack, he will gain respect and have things his way ... However, instead of being intimidated or conceding, the ROK (Republic of Korea) and the US have upgraded the (bilateral) Alliance through the Washington Declaration," Kim Gunn was quoted as saying by Yonhap.
As part of the talks, Kim Gunn, top US envoy Sung Yong Kim and their Japanese counterpart, Takehiro Funakoshi, expressed their common desire to work on preventing the funding of Pyongyang's weapons development programs, the report said.
At the same time, they reaffirmed their countries' readiness for an open dialogue with Pyongyang in order to bring it "back to the path to denuclearization," the news agency reported.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and his US counterpart, Joe Biden, officially adopted the Washington Declaration at a bilateral summit in the US capital, pledging to "engage in deeper, cooperative decision-making on nuclear deterrence." The presidents also agreed to establish a new Nuclear Consultative Group to discuss nuclear and strategic planning between their nations.
North Korea carried out its latest missile launch on July 12. The new-type Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile is believed to have flown over 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) at a maximum altitude of over 6,000 kilometers on a lofted trajectory.
