South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has vowed to emphasize the importance of faithfully enforcing United Nations sanctions on North Korea and thwarting its illicit activities to fund its weapons programs during international summits in Indonesia and India this week.
President Yoon is set to embark on a four-day visit to Jakarta starting Tuesday, where he will participate in a series of summits alongside leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Subsequently, he will travel to New Delhi for a meeting with leaders of leading rich and developing nations.
President Yoon expressed his intent to rally the international community against North Korea’s escalating missile tests and nuclear threats, advocating for collective efforts towards denuclearization. He stressed that stringent enforcement of the existing U.N. Security Council sanctions could significantly impede North Korea’s financial resources for weapons of mass destruction development.
Despite grappling with economic challenges exacerbated by stringent pandemic measures, North Korea has been conducting an unprecedented number of missile tests since the previous year. South Korean officials believe that the North’s weapons programs are increasingly funded through illegal means such as cyber hacking and the illicit export of banned items. Moreover, a significant number of North Korean workers have reportedly remained in China and Russia, despite a U.N. directive for member states to repatriate all North Korean guest workers by December 2019, which had been a key source of foreign currency for North Korea.
G20 Summit as a Platform for Deterrence
South Korean President Yoon highlighted that the upcoming Group of 20 summit will serve as a platform to stress the importance of actively deterring North Korea from engaging in activities such as cryptocurrency theft, dispatching workers abroad, facilitating maritime transshipments, and other illicit actions that serve as the primary sources of funding for its nuclear and missile development.
North Korea’s advancing nuclear arsenal remains a pressing security concern for South Korea, while also posing severe threats to the United States and Japan. North Korea’s long-range missiles have the capability to target the mainland United States, while its shorter-range missiles can reach South Korea and Japan, both key U.S. allies.
In a trilateral summit held at Camp David in August, President Yoon, U.S. President Joe Biden, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed to conduct annual trilateral exercises and implement real-time missile warning data sharing on North Korea by year’s end. They also committed to establishing a trilateral working group to enhance cooperation in countering North Korean cyber threats and preventing its cyber-enabled evasion of sanctions.
North Korea strongly condemned the three leaders in response, accusing them of plotting nuclear provocations on the Korean Peninsula. Leader Kim Jong Un referred to President Yoon, President Biden, and Prime Minister Kishida as “the gang bosses” of their respective countries.
President Yoon, citing recent assessments, noted that North Korea is currently facing its most severe economic challenges since Kim Jong Un assumed power in late 2011. The situation underscores the urgency of international efforts to address North Korea’s destabilizing activities and its nuclear ambitions.