North Korea Condemns South Korea Nuclear Submarine — SkimNews
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- North Korea's foreign ministry called the US approval for South Korea's first nuclear submarine "a dangerous development" that adds new instability to the Asia-Pacific, per a Sept 29 KCNA statement.
- North Korea explicitly tied the approval to broader US nuclear proliferation, citing the AUKUS pact and what it described as Washington's "radical nuclear arms buildup" responsible for the "collapse of international nuclear order."
- South Korea aims to launch its first nuclear-powered submarine by the mid-2030s under a program specifically designed to counter North Korea's submarine-launched nuclear and missile threats.
- The nuclear submarine plan was agreed between Seoul and Washington under a bilateral trade deal struck last year.
Why it matters: North Korea is reframing a bilateral US–South Korea submarine deal as multilateral proliferation by invoking AUKUS — a rhetorical escalation that, given the mid-2030s delivery timeline, gives Pyongyang years of diplomatic ammunition against a capability designed to threaten its own submarine-based deterrent.
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