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| President Moon Jae-in listens to U.S. President Donald Trump during a joint press conference after their summit at Cheong Wa Dae, Tuesday. South Korea is the second stop of the U.S. president's five-nation Asian tour. He departs for China today. / Korea Times photo by Koh Young-kwon. |
Moon, Trump agree on speedy renegotiation of FTA
By Kim Rahn
South Korea will begin talks with the United States to purchase the latter's strategic arms, such as surveillance assets and nuclear-powered submarine, Cheong Wa Dae said after a summit between the leaders of the two nations, Tuesday.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed on the South's purchase of cutting-edge military weapons to improve its own military capabilities during their summit.
These were their third bilateral talks and Trump's first visit to South Korea. It was also the first state visit of a U.S. president here in 25 years.
"We agreed to start talks on South Korea's acquisition and development of state-of-the-art military surveillance assets," Moon said in a joint press conference after the summit. "This is necessary to improve South Korea's own defense capabilities and the joint defense capabilities of the two nations."
Saying his country has great military equipment, Trump also said, "South Korea will be ordering billions of dollars of that equipment, which, frankly, for them makes a lot of sense and for us it means jobs, it means reducing our trade deficit with South Korea."
Regarding the agreement, a Cheong Wa Dae senior officials said the state-of-the-art strategic assets Seoul plans to adopt include a nuclear-powered submarine and surveillance assets, but exactly which weapons to acquire and how many of them to buy has not yet been decided.
"We may purchase the weapons or co-develop them with the U.S.," the official said, adding there were various things to review including technical aspects and it will take some time. "The two leaders agreed on the issues in principle during their previous summits as well, but there are things to solve when considering international norms and the characteristics of U.S. nuclear-powered submarines," he said.
As another way of improving Seoul's own military deterrence, the two leaders agreed to lift the limit on the maximum weight of warheads to be mounted on South Korean ballistic missiles.
They also agreed that the two countries would share reasonable levels of the defense costs of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, but did not discuss this in detail, the official said.
Regarding trade and economic cooperation between the two countries, Moon and Trump agreed to speed up the ongoing renegotiation of the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS FTA), which Trump has claimed is disadvantageous to his country.
"I feel confident that we will be able to reach a free, fair and reciprocal trade deal as we renegotiate our current five-year-old trade document," Trump said.
But the U.S. president did not mention anything about scrapping the deal as he had earlier pledged during his election campaign, the Cheong Wa Dae official said.
The two heads of states also reaffirmed the stance to resolve the North Korea's nuclear and missile programs issue in a peaceful manner but also sternly deal with any of its provocations.
"We again strongly urge the North to stop nuclear and missile provocations and come to negotiations for denuclearization," Moon said. "We reconfirmed the strategy to apply maximum pressure and sanctions until North Korea gives up its nuclear program and agrees to serious talks."
Trump called North Korea "a worldwide threat that requires worldwide action."
"We will together confront North Korea's actions and prevent the North Korean dictator from threatening millions of innocent lives," Trump said. "We call on every responsible nation, including China and Russia, to demand that the North Korean regime end its nuclear weapons and its missile programs, and to live in peace."
Moon said they agreed to expand and strengthen rotational deployment of U.S. strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula and nearby regions.
Trump also dismissed concerns that South Korea is being sidelined in talks to resolve the North Korea issue. "South Korea is very important to me and there will be no skipping South Korea. I can tell you that right now. Plus I've developed a great friendship not only with the President but with others, and we're not going to let them down and they're not going to let us down."
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