▲ President Yoon Suk Yeol gives opening remarks during a meeting of the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council at the KINTEX exhibition center in Goyang, just northwest of Seoul, on Nov. 28, 2023. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

(LEAD) Yoon-N Korea

(LEAD) Yoon vows stronger deterrence against N.K. nuclear threat

(ATTN: UPDATES with more info in last 5 paras)

By Lee Haye-ah

SEOUL, Nov. 28 (Yonhap) -- President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed Tuesday to work together with the United States and Japan to strengthen deterrence against North Korea's nuclear threat and improve the human rights situation in the country.

Yoon made the remarks during a meeting of the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council, a presidential body that helps establish and implement bipartisan policies on democratic and peaceful unification.

"North Korea tries to neutralize our people's will for security and break up our coordination with allies by threatening to use nuclear force. But that is absurd," Yoon said in front of more than 10,000 members of the council at the KINTEX exhibition center in Goyang, just northwest of Seoul, arguing the North's nuclear and missile programs are a means to unite the forces that protect the regime.

"The history of mankind proves that peace dependent on the other side's goodwill is nothing but a dream and an illusion," he continued. "True peace is built on overwhelming and strong power, and a firm will to use that power at any time to protect oneself."

Yoon outlined his administration's efforts to build stronger deterrence against North Korea, such as by accelerating the completion of the so-called three-axis system and including South Korea and the United States' commitment to immediately punish any nuclear provocation by the North in the Washington Declaration he and U.S. President Joe Biden adopted in April.

"Moreover, the missile warning data sharing system established among South Korea, the U.S. and Japan, and the joint military exercises the three countries will systematically enforce will strengthen our deterrence against North Korea a step further," he said.

Yoon also called attention to the human rights abuses in North Korea, noting his administration was the first to publicly publish a North Korean human rights report earlier this year.

"South Korea, the U.S. and Japan will strengthen cooperation to enhance North Korea's human rights situation," he said, citing the Washington Declaration and a joint statement produced after the three countries' trilateral summit at Camp David in August.

"Without an improvement in North Korea's human rights situation, the path to a democratic and peaceful reunification is far off," he added. "The democratic and peaceful reunification we aim for is a reunification that allows everyone in both South and North Korea to enjoy freedom and prosper."

Yoon said South Korea will use its 2024-2025 term as a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to strengthen cooperation with the international community on North Korea's human rights situation.

The Peaceful Unification Advisory Council, which is chaired by the president, has 21,000 members at home and abroad.

In a separate meeting with the Sages Group for North Korean Human Rights, Yoon also called on the international community to unite in preventing human rights violations in North Korea.

"The international community's concerted message that North Korea's illegal nuclear and missile development and human rights exploitation will never be tolerated should be sent continuously," the president said during the meeting.

He also stressed that repatriating North Korean refugees against their will is another serious human rights violation, adding the human rights situation in North Korea has remained unchanged since the U.N.'s 2014 Commission of Inquiry report denouncing systematic rights violations there.

"The North Korean human rights issue is not a matter confined to North Korea but one about the humanitarian values that we all should implement, and the international community should unite with awareness to address it," he said.

The Sages Group is an association of prominent experts on North Korean human rights issues. Among those who attended Tuesday's meeting was Michael Kirby, the former chair of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea.

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