South Korea\u2019s defence minister claimed on Thursday that North Korea possesses around 80 to 120 nuclear weapons, disputing US president Donald Trump\u2019s claim that Pyongyang has 57.<\/p>\n
The remarks were made by defence minister Ahn Gyu-back during a parliamentary session. According to news agency Reuters, the minister also said Seoul \u201ccannot acknowledge\u201d the 57-warhead estimate and stressed that South Korea cannot develop nuclear weapons or accept US tactical nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
The remarks come amid renewed tensions over US-South Korean military drills, which Pyongyang has condemned as provocative.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, US president Donald Trump said he planned to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and claimed that Pyongyang had 57 \u201cvery powerful nuclear weapons\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that I get along with him – that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons,\u201d Trump said, adding, \u201cThey should have never allowed it. If I were president, I wouldn’t have allowed it. But he’s got them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The claim differs from other estimates. In June, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) estimated that North Korea had \u201cpossibly assembled around 60 warheads, possesses enough fissile material to produce at least 30 more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, North Korea has repeatedly vowed to strengthen its nuclear force \u201cboth in quality and quantity\u201d. Meanwhile, Pyongyang has also denounced joint US-South Korean military drills as provocative.<\/p>\n
North Korea\u2019s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) had earlier reported that a ruling party military commission meeting had decided on measures aimed at \u201cbolstering up the nuclear force both in quality and quantity\u201d.<\/p>\n
Pyongyang has repeatedly described itself as an \u201cirreversible\u201d nuclear state and labelled South Korea its \u201cmost hostile\u201d enemy. It has also accused US-Japan-South Korea military cooperation of turning into a nuclear alliance.<\/p>\n
The statements came as South Korea and the US conducted the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, which began on Monday and are scheduled to end on Friday, six days earlier than originally planned. The exercises were scaled back after Trump ordered the Pentagon to \u201csubstantially reduce\u201d the 11-day drills, with the move announced by the South Korean and US militaries days later.<\/p>\n
North Korea, however, said the reduction did not change its view that the exercises were provocative, potentially complicating prospects for an early resumption of diplomacy between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. It has routinely condemned the exercises.<\/p>\n
Earlier in April, the International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi had said that North Korea had made a \u201cvery serious increase\u201d in its nuclear weapons production capabilities. Grossi had cited increased activity at facilities including the five-megawatt reactor, reprocessing unit and light water reactor at Yongbyon. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Korea\u2019s defence minister claimed on Thursday that North Korea possesses around 80 to 120 nuclear weapons, disputing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1523,4367,4370,38555,154,4368,4366,4369,129,1521,76],"class_list":["post-125860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pyongyang","tag-breaking-news","tag-daily-news","tag-global-news","tag-inkl","tag-news","tag-news-app","tag-news-headlines","tag-news-today","tag-pyongyang","tag-today-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}