SEOUL: Talks with North Korea should not be for political show but contribute to establishing peace, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said on Wednesday, speaking at a wide-ranging press conference to mark his first 100 days in office.
Yoon repeated his willingness to provide phased economic aid to North Korea if it ended nuclear weapons development and began denuclearization, noting that he had called for a dialogue with Pyongyang since his campaign.
“Any dialogue between the leaders of the South and North, or negotiations between main working-level officials, should not be a political show, but should contribute to establishing substantive peace on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia,” he said.
The comments were an apparent criticism of a series of summits involving his predecessor Moon Jae-in, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and then-US President Donald Trump.
Despite those meetings, denuclearization talks stalled in 2019 and North Korea has said it will not trade away its self-defense, though it has called for an end to sanctions. It has been observed preparing for a possible nuclear test, which would be its first since 2017.
South Korea was not in a position to guarantee the North’s security if it gave up its nuclear weapons, but Seoul did not want a forced change in the status quo in the North, Yoon said.
The North’s recent missile tests and nuclear development has revived debate over whether the South should pursue its own nuclear weapons. Yoon said that he was committed to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and working with the United States to boost its “extended deterrence” for South Korea.
“The NPT should not be abandoned and I will adhere to that until the end,” he said.
South Korea president says any talks with Pyongyang should be more than show
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South Korea president says any talks with Pyongyang should be more than show
- Yoon Suk-yeol repeats his willingness to provide phased economic aid to North Korea
Philippine lawmakers start VP Duterte impeachment hearings
- The revived impeachment bid leans heavily on allegations that the younger Duterte misused public funds
MANILA: A Philippine congressional committee began impeachment hearings Monday that could dash Vice President Sara Duterte’s run for the country’s top job.
The daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte, who recently announced her candidacy for the 2028 presidential election, was impeached by the country’s House of Representatives last year only to see the Supreme Court toss the case out over procedural issues.
The revived impeachment bid leans heavily on allegations that the younger Duterte misused public funds while in office and will see the House justice committee debate three such complaints.
A fourth case was dropped by complainants who hoped to speed up the process.
Duterte also stands accused of making a death threat against her former ally and current President Ferdinand Marcos, with whom she is engaged in an explosive political feud.
Under the Philippine constitution, an impeachment triggers a Senate trial. A guilty verdict would result in Duterte being barred from politics and sidelined from the 2028 presidential race.
The latest impeachment bid faces a changed environment with the vice president ahead in recent polls, analysts told AFP.
“The political context will be very different, especially now that Sara declared her candidacy,” University of the Philippines political science professor Jean Franco said.
“It’s definitely going to weigh on the minds of the members of the House of Representatives,” Franco said, adding that a vote for impeachment would effectively see a lawmaker’s career “marked for death.”
Anthony Lawrence Borja, an associate professor of political science at De La Salle University agreed saying: “It is ultimately a question of whether the patronage of the current administration outweighs their fear of Duterte’s condemnation.”
The same committee hearing the case against Duterte last month tossed out a pair of impeachment complaints against Marcos, ruling that allegations of corruption over a scandal involving bogus flood control projects lacked substance.
Michael Wesley Poa, spokesman for Duterte’s defense team, told AFP they were closely monitoring deliberations and trusted “the same standards” used in the Marcos hearing would be applied.
