▲ This photo, provided by the foreign ministry on Feb. 23, 2026, shows Jeong Yeon-doo, vice minister for diplomatic strategy and intelligence, delivering a speech at the high-level segment of the Conference on Disarmament held on the same day in Geneva, Switzerland. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

nuclear envoy-N Korea

S. Korea's nuclear envoy urges N. Korea to comply with UNSC resolutions, return to dialogue

SEOUL, Feb. 24 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's nuclear envoy has called on North Korea to comply with U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolutions on the North's nuclear and missile programs and return to the dialogue table, Seoul's foreign ministry said Tuesday.

Jeong Yeon-doo, vice minister for diplomatic strategy and intelligence, made the call at the high-level segment of the Conference on Disarmament held Monday in Geneva, Switzerland, according to the ministry.

"We call upon the DPRK to respond to our sincere efforts and to engage constructively in dialogue, and also to return to full compliance with the NPT and relevant UNSC resolutions," Jeong said, referring to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

DPRK is the acronym of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Jeong also voiced "deep" concerns about North Korea's illegal military cooperation with Russia, stressing that such cooperation must "cease immediately" as it seriously undermines international peace and security, the ministry said.

Seoul's envoy said while the government maintains the goal of "complete denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula, it also recognizes that achieving such a goal will require a considerable amount of time.

"This is why we are pursuing a phased denuclearization approach that starts with stopping the DPRK's nuclear and ballistic missile programs through dialogue and negotiation, moves to reduction in the medium term, and ultimately proceeds to dismantlement in the long term," he said.

North Korea has remained unresponsive to dialogue overtures by President Lee Jae Myung. The North's leader Kim Jong-un has declared inter-Korean ties as those between "two states hostile to each other," vowing not to seek unification with the South.

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