South Korea's military has reacted negatively to a possible U.S. push to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula, saying such a move won't be helpful in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue.
A source in the South's military said Sunday that a redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea would run counter to a 1992 inter-Korean declaration on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and work against persuading the North to give up its nuclear weapons program.
The response came after reports last week that a U.S. congressional committee is pressuring the Obama administration to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula. The House Armed Services Committee, dominated by Republicans, approved an amendment to the fiscal 2013 national defense authorization bill Thursday that calls for the re-introduction of the sensitive weapons to South Korea, according to Foreign Policy magazine.
The U.S. pulled all of its forward-based nuclear weapons out of Korea in 1991 before the two Koreas signed a deal on the denuclearization of the peninsula. Since then, the U.S. has provided a so-called nuclear umbrella for the South.
"The U.S. withdrew all its tactical nuclear weapons from (South) Korea in 1991 and most of them have already been scrapped. A reversal of the policy would trigger a lot of controversy," the South Korean military source said on condition of anonymity.
"Due to the controversy (surrounding tactical nuclear weapons), (South) Korea and the U.S. are developing strategies to counter North Korea's weapons of mass destruction with a conventional precision strike system," said the source. (Yonhap)