South Korea and the European Union have said that North Korea will ¡°never¡± be recognized as a nuclear-weapon state, reaffirming their commitment to denuclearization days after China and North Korea pledged closer ties at a summit that made no public mention of the issue.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung held talks with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa on Wednesday in Brussels, where they agreed to step up defense ties, including efforts to facilitate the exchange of classified information.
¡°The DPRK will never be accepted as a nuclear-weapon state,¡± the EU and South Korea said in a joint statement, referring to North Korea¡¯s formal name, the Democratic People¡¯s Republic of Korea.
Lee is on a European tour that will also include stops in Italy and France, where he¡¯ll join the Group of Seven summit next week.
The statement follows a meeting between U.S. and Japanese officials in Tokyo earlier this week at which they reaffirmed their commitment to seeking the denuclearization of North Korea.
The back-to-back calls for denuclearization come after Chinese leader Xi Jinping skipped any public mention of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula during his visit to Pyongyang this week. Beijing has in the past routinely called for ¡°denuclearization¡± ¡ª it was Xi¡¯s main message during a previous trip to North Korea in 2019. The latest visit was being watched for signs he might use his influence over Pyongyang to reassert that message.
That phrase has been missing from official Chinese statements since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited Beijing in September, fueling speculation that China has tacitly accepted North Korea as a de facto nuclear power.
South Korea and the EU also condemned the military cooperation between Russia and North Korea. European leaders have urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to an immediate and complete ceasefire after he rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy¡¯s call to meet and negotiate an end to the war that began more than four years ago.
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