Ambassador to the U.S. "If Trump is elected, he cannot rule out renegotiating defense costs."

[Anchor]
If Trump wins the U.S. presidential election, the ambassador to the U.S. said in the National Assembly that he could demand renegotiation of the recently concluded defense cost sharing between South Korea and the U.S.

He also said that when a new U.S. government is launched, securing spent nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities will be a priority.

This is Washington correspondent Kwon Jun-ki.

[Reporter]
The parliamentary audit of the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee at the Embassy in Washington, D.C.

When asked about the prospects for the U.S. presidential election, which is about 20 days away, Ambassador to the U.S. said it was an unpredictable battle.

[Joh Hyeon-dong / Ambassador to the U.S. : Even polls are almost up, the prevailing judgment now is that it is impossible to gauge the superiority and inferiority of who has the upper hand, especially in competing states.]

If former President Trump is elected, there is a possibility of reversing the recently concluded defense cost-sharing negotiations, and Ambassador Cho observed that the demand for renegotiation cannot be ruled out.

[Lee Yong-sun / Democratic Party member: I think this is also a point where we should pay attention to the possibility of renegotiation after the presidential election....]

{Hyeon-dong Cho / Ambassador to the United States: In the case of the United States, which does not receive ratification consent from Congress, the possibility of such (re-negotiation) cannot be ruled out according to the authority of the President.]

Lawmakers from the ruling and opposition parties have been engaged in a war of nerves over South Korea's own nuclear armament or the redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to counter the North Korean nuclear threat.

[Kim Ki-hyun / People's Power: In the case of the embassy in the U.S., contrary to the official government's position, it is my view that more concrete efforts are needed to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula behind the scenes]

[Seong Sa-rak / Democratic Party member: If there had been more tangible progress on the issue of expansion deterrence than now, we could expect the two issues, deterrence against North Korea and control of domestic nuclear armament (public opinion)].]

Ambassador Cho made it clear that although there have been growing voices in the United States supporting South Korea's independent nuclear armament, it is not our government's position.

As it was pointed out that unlike Japan, which can extract plutonium, a raw material for nuclear weapons, we cannot even have a nuclear fuel reprocessing facility,
Ambassador to Article
promised to make securing nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities a priority issue when a new U.S. government is launched.

This is YTN Kwon Jun-ki from Washington.



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