South Korea, US, Japan joint statement: “Brighter future” choice for North Korea

July 10, 2017

HAMBURG – South Korea, the U.S. and Japan have released a joint statement out of the G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany, outlining measures to deal with threats posed by the nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes in North Korea. 

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe condemned Pyongyang's “provocative and threatening actions”, underscoring their commitment to further strengthen their respective alliances.

South Korea’s Government Information Service said the three leaders made it clear that they would not tolerate Pyongyang's nuclear armament, and affirmed the importance of working together to counter the North Korean threat and to achieve a complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner, a shared goal among the three countries. 

Emphasising that they, together with the international community, "stand ready to offer a brighter future for North Korea if it chooses the right path", the three leaders decided to press for early adoption of new U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolutions that would include additional sanctions and demonstrate that there are consequences for North Korea's destabilising, escalatory actions. 

The leaders called on the international community to "swiftly and fully implement all UNSC resolutions and to take measures to reduce economic relations with North Korea".

They also called on the nations that border North Korea to make further efforts to convince the Northern regime to abandon its threatening path, to immediately take steps towards denuclearisation and to halt its ballistic missile programme.

The leaders stressed their commitment to increasing their capabilities to deter and respond to any attack from North Korea, and to advancing trilateral security c-ooperation in the face of threats posed by North Korea.  www.korea.net/ (ATI).