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Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova's answer to a media question about statements by the South Korean leadership on nuclear issues

1 February 2024 21:26
167-01-02-2024

Question: President of the Republic of Korea Yoon Suk Yeol said: "North Korea is the only country in the world that explicitly specifies invasion and preemptive nuclear use in its constitution." Your comment?

Maria Zakharova: I believe the statement is blatantly biased. Such statements are designed to obscure aggressive plans as regards the DPRK. They look particularly odious against the backdrop of what is happening on the Korean Peninsula and the surrounding situation. The degree of tension and conflict is continuously growing there, primarily due to the brazen policy of the United States and its allies, including the Republic of Korea and Japan.

The authors of such strategic revelations should know that the doctrines of Seoul's American curators assert for themselves the possibility of a nuclear first strike. They also justify "preventive" disarming and decapitating strikes on countries that Washington has listed as its enemies. As for being unique, the US is truly the only country to have used nuclear weapons, having cynically dropped bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the final stage of the war. The US was confident it would get away with this. This action was unjustified from a military or any other point of view but Washington needed to demonstrate vividly that it possessed super-powerful weapons. It became one of its first claims to global domination.

Unfortunately, Seoul doesn't seem to realise that the United States' leading position is irrevocably becoming a thing of the past. South Korea is doing all it can to support the deployment of US strategic weapons, including nuclear arms carriers, and is participating in increasingly intensive exercises and other training activities. Moreover, Seoul is also joining destabilising schemes of "expanded nuclear deterrence" that already provide for joint plans of using nuclear arms.

This shortsighted approach is reflected in provocative rhetoric. A vivid example of this is the recent statement by the South Korean leaders to the effect that the Republic of Korea and the US have already reached the nuclear alliance level. But does Seoul understand that if it comes to testing these statements in practice, South Korea may turn out to be no more than a small bargaining chip in Washington's geopolitical games?