Russia blames tighter South Korea-U.S. security ties for making North's denuclearization 'impossible'

Russia's Foreign Ministry blamed heightened South Korea-U.S. security cooperation for rendering denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula "impossible" in a statement issued on Wednesday (local time).

This image from United Nations Television shows Russia Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya during a meeting of the United Nations Security Council in New York on Wednesday. [AP/YONHAP]

Russia's Foreign Ministry blamed heightened South Korea-U.S. security cooperation for rendering denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula "impossible" in a statement issued on Wednesday (local time).

The statement followed last week’s remarks by Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that convincing Pyongyang to abandon its weapons of mass destruction was “off the table” due to Washington’s “threats” and efforts to build a “trilateral alliance” with Seoul and Tokyo.

“The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is impossible in a situation where the South Korea-U.S. alliance has been elevated to a nuclear level,” the ministry said in an apparent reference to the establishment of the allies’ Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) under the April 2023 Washington Declaration by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden.

The NCG is a working group of officials from both countries designed to strengthen extended deterrence against threats from North Korea through dialogue and information sharing on strategies involving the use of nuclear weapons.

While the NCG gives South Korea a say in how U.S. nuclear weapons should be used in contingencies involving a North Korean attack, it does not provide for South Korean involvement in their delivery.

Nonetheless, Lavrov in his comments last week accused the United States of building a “nuclear alliance” in East Asia by “drawing military-strategic infrastructure elements” and “systems related to nuclear weapon carriers” into the region.

The Russian foreign minister called North Korea’s denuclearization a “closed” issue in light of these “new realities,” which he characterized as signs that the South Korea-U.S. alliance “is clearly on the path to becoming a trilateral block with Japan, which is demonstratively pursuing a course of remilitarization.”

Lavrov also said Moscow “understands” Pyongyang’s desire to develop and maintain its nuclear arsenal for self-defense.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks to the media after addressing the 79th United Nations General Assembly in New York, on Sept. 28. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

Lavrov’s comments prompted a strongly worded rebuke on Monday from South Korea’s Foreign Ministry, which called on Russia to uphold international nonproliferation efforts against the North as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and as one of the founding states of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) regime.

The ministry also pointed out that Russia previously voted in favor of Security Council resolutions against the North, which call for the “complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement” of the regime’s nuclear weapons program.

Although Moscow previously supported sanctions against Pyongyang and participated in the 2003-2009 six-party talks aimed at negotiating an end to the regime’s nuclear program, the country has drawn increasingly close to the North since invading Ukraine in 2022.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in September last year marked the beginning of greater military cooperation between their countries, including large-scale arms shipments, while Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June was capped by the signing of a mutual defense treaty.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]