Wi Sung-lac heads to Tokyo for North Korea talks

South Korea’s national security adviser Wi Sung-lac is scheduled to visit Tokyo on Dec. 22 for talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu. According to the presidential office on Dec. 21, Wi will meet Motegi over lunch that day. As Wi has indicated that inter-Korean relations will rank at the top of South Korea’s diplomatic and security priorities next year, coordination on policy toward North Korea is expected to feature prominently on the agenda.

Earlier, Wi traveled to Ottawa, Canada, where he sought to support South Korean companies bidding for a major Canadian submarine program valued at up to 60 trillion won. The project calls for the acquisition of 12 submarines in the 3,000-ton class to replace four 2,400-ton Victoria-class submarines that the Canadian navy introduced from the British Royal Navy in 1998.

Wi also visited Washington, D.C. on Dec. 16 and 17 local time, where he was understood to have reached an agreement with the United States to begin parallel discussions starting next year on South Korea’s construction of nuclear-powered submarines, as well as on uranium enrichment and the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. During his trip, Wi met with U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, among other officials.

Wi said the two sides agreed to conclude a separate bilateral agreement under Section 91 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, which allows the U.S. president to authorize the transfer of military nuclear materials, to enable South Korea to build nuclear-powered submarines. The move is widely interpreted as signaling that, rather than revising the existing South Korea-U.S. nuclear cooperation agreement, Seoul could pursue a separate accord specific to nuclear-powered submarines, similar to the framework adopted by Australia, and that the two countries have reached a shared understanding on this approach.

According to a joint fact sheet on tariffs and security released by South Korea and the United States last month, Washington agreed to approve Seoul’s construction of nuclear-powered submarines and to support Seoul’s efforts to obtain authorization to enrich uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel.


윤다빈 기자 empty@donga.com