South Korea’s Yoon says alliance with U.S. is now ‘nuclear-based’

SEOUL, July 16 (UPI) -- South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said Tuesday that the alliance with the United States has been raised to a "nuclear-based" one capable of warding off threats from North Korea in the wake of new joint deterrence guidelines.

Last week, Yoon and U.S. President Joe Biden authorized the nuclear deterrence guidelines on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, D.C.

"The South Korea-U.S. alliance has been firmly upgraded to a nuclear-based alliance in name and reality," Yoon said during a cabinet meeting .

"Whether in wartime or peacetime, U.S. nuclear assets are specially assigned to missions on the Korean Peninsula," he said. "Now we have established a posture that can respond quickly and effectively to any kind of North Korean nuclear threat."

Washington has worked to reassure Seoul that its nuclear umbrella will be sufficient to protect South Korea. The allies have held expanded joint military drills and simulated "table-top" exercises while U.S. assets such as aircraft carriers, a B-52 nuclear bomber and a nuclear ballistic missile submarine are regularly deployed to the peninsula.

The new guidelines follow up on last year's creation of a joint Nuclear Consultative Group to bolster bilateral planning and responses to North Korean aggression.

Over the weekend, North Korea condemned the adoption of the guidelines, calling it a "reckless provocative act" that is the "root cause of endangering the regional security."

"We seriously warn the hostile states not to commit such provocative acts causing instability anymore," a Defense Ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by official media.

"If they ignore this warning, they will have to pay an unimaginably harsh price for it," the spokesman said.

South Korea's military responded Sunday by calling the North's statement "self-contradictory" and warned that any attempt to use nuclear weapons would bring about the end of its regime.

"If there had been no nuclear threat from North Korea in the first place, the South Korea-U.S. joint guidelines would not have been necessary," Seoul's Defense Ministry said in a message sent to reporters.

"If North Korea attempts to use nuclear weapons, the overwhelming response of the South Korea-U.S. alliance will bring about the end of the North Korean regime," it said.