National security advisors of the United States, Japan and South Korea reaffirmed their commitment to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a joint statement released by the White House on Friday, TASS reports.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan of the United States, National Security Secretariat Secretary General Shigeru Kitamura of Japan, and National Security Office Director Suh Hoon of the Republic of Korea (ROK) met for talks on April 2, 2021 at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
“The national security advisors shared their concerns about North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs and reaffirmed their commitment to address and resolve these issues through concerted trilateral cooperation towards denuclearization,” the three advisors said in a joint statement.
The sides held consultations regarding the United States’ ongoing review of its North Korea policy. They discussed issues of common concern including Indo Pacific security” and “reaffirmed their steadfast commitment to working together to protect and advance their shared security goals.”
They also “agreed on the imperative for full implementation of relevant UN Security Council resolutions by the international community, including North Korea, preventing proliferation, and cooperating to strengthen deterrence and maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”
Among other issues, the advisors addressed the situation in Myanmar, the novel coronavirus pandemic and climate change.
The White House said in January that the current US administration led by President Joe Biden plans to prepare a new North Korea strategy and that its policy would include deterrence of Pyongyang. Earlier, the new US administration de-facto signaled that it had no plans to rely on a direct bilateral dialogue with North Korea for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. In mid-March, a senior administration official told TASS Washington’s attempts to establish contact with Pyongyang in order to prevent escalation had so far been unsuccessful.
The previous US president, Donald Trump, made an unprecedented denuclearization effort, including personal contacts with the North Korean leadership. The first-ever US-North Korea summit took place in Singapore on June 12, 2018, when US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed a joint declaration. Pyongyang undertook certain denuclearization commitments in exchange for security guarantees from Washington.
Another US-North Korean summit in Hanoi in February 2019 turned futile. The two leaders had a brief meeting in Panmunjeom, a village on the border between two Koreas, on June 30, 2019 and agreed to resume working-level consultations on denuclearization. Under this agreement, US and North Korean delegations met in Stockholm on October 5 to discuss ways to normalize bilateral relations. However they failed to establish dialogue.
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