South Korean President Park Geun-hye and U.S. President Barack Obama will reaffirm their commitment to North Korea’s denuclearization and urge the communist nation not to conduct any provocations when they hold summit talks later this week, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
North Korea is one of the “fundamental issues” that Park and Obama will be discussing during Friday’s summit, along with enhancing the bilateral alliance and economic cooperation, as well as expanding cooperation on global issues, the officials said.
“North Korea of course will be at the top of the agenda. We will reaffirm our commitment to the complete, verifiable denuclearization of the DPRK (North Korea),” U.S. National Security Council Senior Director for Asian Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink said at a Foreign Press Center briefing.
“We will call on North Korea to abide by its obligations and commitments in the September 2005 Joint Statement of the six-party talks. We will also call on North Korea not to take any actions that violate U.N. Security Council resolutions and escalate tensions,” he said.
Obama will also be “eager to hear” from Park on the latest inter-Korean developments and “express support for President Park’s efforts to improve South-North relations,” Kritenbrink said.
The White House official said that the two leaders will also be discussing “new frontier” issues, such as global health, cybersecurity, climate change, energy and space cooperation.
Park’s visit to Washington, her second since taking office, came about a month after she visited Beijing and attended China’s muscle-flexing military parade, which has raised questions among some U.S. experts about whether Seoul is tilting too much toward Beijing.
But U.S. officials dismissed such concern and expressed confidence in the alliance with Seoul.
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel said the U.S. has long supported the improvement in relations between Seoul and Beijing, and it’s more important than ever for South Korea and China to have a robust relationship and dialogue for economic and strategic reasons.
“The Republic of Korea is a strong democracy. The Republic of Korea is a free market economy. The Republic of Korea is a friend and an ally of the United States,” Russel said. “We have no qualm and no trepidation about more contact, more high-level dialogue between our ally and friend and an important neighbor and frankly an important regional actor, China.”
Russel also said South Korea is “front and center in America’s rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region.”
U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert, who was also present at the briefing, said he believes one of the main goals for Friday’s summit is to further strengthen the already-good personal bonds between the two leaders.
“Knowing the president, President Obama well and getting to know President Park a little bit when I’ve been on the peninsula, especially when she came to visit me in the hospital, I can see why the two leaders like each other and get along well,” the ambassador said, referring to his hospitalization after a knife attack early this year.
“They’re both extremely substantive. They’re both extremely insightful and I see why the personal chemistry works. And that has good trickle-down effects for every part of the relationship,” Lippert said.
The envoy also said that another key outcome of the upcoming summit will be “to set the strategic direction of the relationship for the next five or 10 years.”
Lippert said, however, that it is “highly unlikely” for the two leaders to discuss the possible deployment of the U.S. THAAD missile defense system.
The U.S. wants to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense unit to South Korea, where some 28,500 American troops are stationed, to better defend against ever-growing threats from North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs.
But the issue has become one of the most sensitive for South Korea because China sees a potential THAAD deployment as a threat to its security interests and has increased pressure on Seoul to reject such a deployment.
Seoul and Washington have maintained they have never held any formal consultations on the issue.
Lippert declined to talk about when would be the best time to start discussions on the issue. (Yonhap)
