SEOUL: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his “clear commitment” to North Korea’s denuclearisation during his visit to Seoul, weeks after Pyongyang said it was “ready to mobilise” its nuclear deterrent.

Guterres arrived in Seoul following a trip to Japan, where he gave a speech to mark 77th anniversary of world’s first nuclear bomb attack in Hiroshima. He has also been to Mongolia. “I would like to reaffirm our clear commitment to full, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of Korean peninsula, of DPRK,” he said at his meeting with South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol, using North Korea’s official name. Goal is a “fundamental objective to bring peace, security and stability to whole region,” Guterres told Yoon, according to footage broadcast by local media.

Guterres’s comments come as Washington and Seoul officials have repeatedly warned that North is preparing to carry out what would be its seventh nuclear test. Pyongyang has conducted a record-breaking blitz of weapons tests so far this year, including firing an intercontinental ballistic missile at full range for first time since 2017. Guterres delivered a stark warning against horrors of atomic weapons in New York at a key nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty conference last week, which he reiterated in Japan.

Published in The Daily National Courier, August, 13 2022

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