SEOUL — Assistance from Russia had rendered sanctions imposed on nuclear-armed North Korea “ineffective,” South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said on Friday after discussing the matter with his United States counterpart Donald Trump.
Lee and Trump met at a Group of Seven summit in France this week, where they discussed the long-running standoff between South Korea and its northern neighbor.
“I told him sanctions and pressure are ineffective,” Lee told reporters in the capital Seoul.
“The effectiveness of sanctions has diminished due to military cooperation between North Korea and Russia stemming from the war in Ukraine,” he said.
“Even a small amount of assistance from Russia is of great help to North Korea,” the president added.
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Pyongyang is under multiple sets of sanctions over its nuclear program, and the two Koreas remain technically at war because their 1950–53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
While in France, Trump signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the war in the Middle East, and speculation has been rife that his administration would next shift its diplomatic focus to North Korea.
Lee said Trump had told him in the French town of Evian that “the time had come to pay attention to the North Korea issue.”
On Sunday, Trump posted an uncaptioned photo of himself and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un taken at a meeting in Singapore in 2018.
‘Irreversible’
Kim has sought to enhance his standing with his allies, sending troops and munitions to aid Russia’s war on Ukraine.
He also hosted Xi Jinping in the North’s capital Pyongyang soon after the Chinese president had held back-to-back summits in Beijing with Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
The White House said Xi and Trump had “confirmed their shared goal of denuclearizing North Korea” during their summit in China.
But neither Pyongyang nor Beijing mentioned the issue in their official statements following the Xi-Kim summit, which experts interpreted as a sign of China’s tacit acceptance of North Korea’s nuclear status.
Pyongyang has repeatedly declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state since a 2019 summit between Kim and Trump in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi collapsed over the scope of denuclearization and sanctions relief.
Lee insisted on Friday that the international community “cannot abandon the goal of denuclearization” of North Korea.
“The key point President Trump made was that it was unfortunate that possible measures had not been taken before North Korea became a nuclear-armed state,” he said.
“I also said that we can no longer deal with the North Korean nuclear issue in the same way we deal with other countries, and President Trump agreed,” Lee added.
‘In love’
Trump met Kim three times during his first term — once declaring they were “in love” — as he pushed to hammer out a long-coveted deal on denuclearization.
Lee said on Friday Trump told him that he wanted to pursue a new meeting with Kim “if there is a way to do so.”
He added that in a meeting at the Vatican this week, he had invited Pope Leo XIV to visit next year to attend World Youth Day in Seoul.
“I also requested that a visit to North Korea be arranged, if possible, alongside a visit to the DMZ during his trip,” said the president, referring to the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas.
“The pope responded that he would actively consider and pursue the matter,” he added.