South Korea’s Yoon will call for strong response to North’s nuclear weapons at ASEAN and G20 summits
Associated PressSEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s president says he’ll tell world leaders about the need to faithfully enforce U.N. sanctions on North Korea and block the country’s illicit activities to fund its weapons programs when they converge in Indonesia and India for annual summits this week. “As long as the U.N. Security Council sanctions currently in place are faithfully implemented, North Korea’s financial means for developing can be blocked to a significant extent,” Yoon said. Yoon said he will particularly use the Group of 20 summit to underscore “the need to actively deter North Korea from stealing cryptocurrency, dispatching workers overseas, facilitating maritime transshipments and other illegal activities — the main funding sources for its nuclear and missile development.” North Korea’s advancing nuclear arsenal is the most vexing security concern for South Korea, but it also poses serious threats to the United States and Japan. Yoon said China “seems to have considerable leverage” over North Korea, adding that about 97% of North Korea’s total external trade volume last year was with China. “The international community must clearly demonstrate that its determination to stop North Korea’s nuclear program is much stronger than North Korea’s will to continue developing it,” Yoon said.