TOKYO (Sputnik) — Korea would be a nuclear-free state if South and North reunify, otherwise regional actors would oppose the move, or seek to acquire own nuclear arms, South Korean Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo said Monday.
“After the reunification there is a goal to denuclearize Korean peninsula … None of the neighbor states will support our reunification, if unified Korea has nuclear weapons” the minister said, as quoted by the Yonhap news agency.
According to Hong, Seoul will continue to stick to the nuclear-free policy, despite the growing threat from Pyongyang.
Korean peninsula was divided into two parts in 1945, as the United States and the Soviet Union signed an agreement on joint management of the country.
Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, the two states have been divided by a demilitarized zone. The conflict is formally ongoing, as the sides signed an armistice, and not a peace treaty, at the end of the war.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula intensified in September after North Korea claimed to have successfully tested a nuclear warhead, having previously detonated an alleged hydrogen bomb in January.
