“Let me just say that the U.S. does not assess returning nuclear weapons to the Indo-Pacific as necessary at this time. The U.S. has no plans to forward-deploy nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula.”
Vedant Patel, Senior Spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State, responded to this on the 30th (local time) when asked about the Russian Foreign Minister’s statement that “Moscow may consider additional nuclear deterrence steps in the event of the U.S. deploying ground-launched intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) to the Indo-Pacific.” He said, “I saw that report.”
However, he argued that the context of the Russian Foreign Minister’s remarks should be found here, saying, “Let’s not forget that it is the Russian Federation that time and time again dating back to the early days of its aggression into Ukraine that it has recklessly participated in a nuclear saber-rattling, talking about the use and deployment of nuclear weapons.”
Regarding North Korea’s recent trash balloon-GPS jamming-short-range ballistic missile launch, Patel condemned North Korea’s ballistic missile launch on May 29, repeating, “This is a violation of the UN Security Council resolution.” He then stated, “We continue to consult closely with the Republic of Korea and Japan against these kinds of malign and destabilizing behaviors”.
In response to the question regarding how he views China despite their inability to suppress North Korea, he passed the ball to countries like China, which sit on the U.N. Security Council, saying, “We continue to believe that there are countries who have a relationship with the DPRK and have influence with the DPRK, and (countries) that have a responsibility to rein in and influence some of the malign and bad behavior that we are seeing, especially a country like the People’s Republic of China which sits on the U.N. Security Council.”
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