US not to redeploy tactical nukes in S. Korea

A scholar said Monday that the United States does not have any interest in redeploying tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea due to the enhanced mobility of its weapons system and the South Korean public's antipathy toward nuclear weapons, Yonhap News Agency reported.

"In an age of jet aircraft and intercontinental missiles, we don't need to forward-deploy nuclear weapons," Jeffrey Lewis, director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation, said in a contribution to the website of "38 North," specializing in North Korean affairs, according to Yonhap.

"Putting U.S. nuclear weapons back into South Korea is a dumb idea," Lewis was quoted as saying.

Last month, then-South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said he would consider discussing with the U.S. redeploying U.S. tactical nuclear weapons back in South Korea, where all U.S. nuclear weapons were removed in 1991.