Washington: President Joe Biden has warned that a nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies will result in the end of whatever regime were to take such an action. Biden issued the warning along with South Korea's Yoon Suk Yeol as they unveiled a new plan on Wednesday to counter North Korea's nuclear threat. The new nuclear deterrence effort calls for periodically docking US Nuclear-armed submarines in South Korea for the first time in decades, bolstering training between the two countries, and more. The declaration was unveiled as Biden hosted Yoon for a state visit at a moment of heightened anxiety over an increased pace of ballistic missile tests by North Korea.


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“A nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies and partners is unacceptable, and will result in the end of whatever regime were to take such an action," Biden said during an afternoon Rose Garden news conference with Yoon.


Yoon said that the new commitment by the ‘righteous alliance’ includes plans for bilateral presidential consultations in the event of a North Korean nuclear attack, the establishment of a nuclear consultative group and improved sharing of information on nuclear and strategic weapons operation plans. 


Yoon added, “Our two countries have agreed to immediate bilateral presidential consultations in the event of North Korea's nuclear attack and promised to respond swiftly, overwhelmingly and decisively using the full force of the alliance, including the United States' nuclear weapons.”


Biden and Yoon aides have been working on details of the plan for months and agreed that ‘occasional’ and ‘very clear demonstrations of the strength’ of US extended deterrence capabilities needed to be an essential aspect of the agreement, according to three senior Biden administration officials who briefed reporters ahead of the announcement.


The officials said the so-called Washington Declaration was designed to allay South Korean fears over the North's aggressive nuclear weapons program and to keep the country from restarting its own nuclear programme, which it gave up nearly 50 years ago when it signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.


Yoon earlier this year said his country was weighing developing its own nuclear weapons or asking the US to redeploy them on the Korean Peninsula. The US and South Korea also would coordinate more deeply on nuclear response strategy in the event of the North attacking the South, but operational control of such weapons would remain in US Control, and no nuclear weapons are being deployed onto South Korean shores.


Biden said coordination between the US and South Korea remains crucial in the face of increased North Korean threats and blatant violations of international sanctions. The president repeated that the US remains open to substantial talks with the North without preconditions.


The state visit comes as the US and South Korea mark the 70th year of the countries' alliance that began at the end of the Korean War and committed the United States to help South Korea defend itself, particularly from North Korea. Approximately 28,500 US troops are currently based in South Korea.


In the midst of the Cold War in the late 1970s, US Nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines made frequent port visits to South Korea, sometimes two to three visits per month, according to the Federation of American Scientists.


It was a period when the US had hundreds of nuclear warheads located in South Korea. But in 1991, the United States withdrew all of its nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula, and the following year Seoul and Pyongyang signed a joint declaration pledging that neither would ‘test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons.’


But as the North has repeatedly violated the joint declaration over the years, there's been increased support in South Korea for the United States to return nuclear weapons to the country.


North Korea's increasing nuclear threats, along with concerns about China's military and economic assertiveness in the region, have pushed the Biden administration to expand its Asian alliance. To that end, Biden has thrown plenty of attention at Yoon as well as Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Next week, Biden will host Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. For Oval Office talks.


In the past year, North Korea has been steadily expanding its nuclear arsenal, while China and Russia repeatedly block U.S.-led efforts to toughen sanctions on the North over its barrage of banned missile tests.


The stepped-up testing by North Korea includes the flight-testing of a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time earlier this month. The recent test is seen as a possible breakthrough in the North's efforts to acquire a more powerful, harder-to-detect weapon targeting the continental United States.