SEOUL: South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol said he will urge the international community to resolutely respond to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats when he attends a series of multilateral summits in Indonesia and India this week, Yonhap news agency cited an interview published Monday.
Yoon made the remark in a written interview with the Associated Press published a day before he heads to Jakarta to attend the 43rd Asean Summit and related summits. From Indonesia, he will travel to New Delhi on Friday to attend a Group of 20 (G20) summit.
“At the upcoming Asean-related summits and the G20 summit, I intend to urge the international community to resolutely respond to North Korea’s ever-escalating missile provocations and nuclear threats and to work closely together on its denuclearisation,“ Yoon was quoted as saying.
“As long as the UN Security Council sanctions currently in place are faithfully implemented, North Korea’s financial means for developing (weapons of mass destruction) can be blocked to a significant extent,“ he added.
Yoon particularly noted the need to deter what he said were North Korea’s main sources of funding for its nuclear and missile development, citing stealing cryptocurrency, labor exports, facilitating maritime transshipments and other illegal activities.
“The international community must clearly demonstrate that its determination to stop North Korea’s nuclear programme is much stronger than North Korea’s will to continue developing it,“ he said. - Bernama