UN chief pledges support for denuclearisation of N/Korea

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has pledged full support to ensure a verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of North Korea.

Guterres at a joint press conference in Tokyo with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, said there was the need to ensure that North Korea could become a normal member of the international community in the region.

The UN chief welcomed the ongoing talks between the U.S. and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), as well as Japan’s renewed initiative of dialogue with the country.

“As Secretary-General of the United Nations, I am obviously totally committed to the implementation of all relevant Security Council resolutions on North Korea.

“I fully support the negotiations taking place with the objective that we all share, to see a total denuclearisation that is verifiable, that is irreversible, to make sure that North Korea can be a normal member of the international community in this region.”

On June 12, U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held a historic summit in Singapore, signing a joint statement which included a pledge to end DPRK’s nuclear weapons programme.

Days after conducting its sixth nuclear test last September, a North Korean ballistic missile flew over mainland Japan, drawing condemnation from the Security Council, which had just ratcheted up sanctions.

Guterres said the UN’s disarmament initiative, ‘Securing Our Common Future’, launched in May 2018 sets out his bold new vision for a world without nuclear arsenals and other deadly weapons.

“It (agenda) focuses on three priorities – weapons of mass destruction, conventional weapons and new battlefield technologies,” Guterres said.

He declared that “the North Korea and the Iran situations were two central aspects of our concerns to make sure that we preserve non-proliferation.

He also recognises that non-proliferation needed to be accompanied by effective disarmament, progressive disarmament measures in the nuclear dimension adding, “at the same time, the full implementation of the ban on chemical weapons and biological weapons”.

He added that the agenda represented “disarmament to save lives”, taking into account the “devastating impact” of conventional weapons on civilian populations in urban centres and “disarmament for the future generations namely to make sure that we do not develop arms, systems of arms, that fully escape the control of human beings and responsibility of human beings”.

The UN chief was in Japan to visit the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum and the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, before taking part in the 73rd Nagasaki Peace Ceremony.