The United States and South Korea also announced on Saturday in Seoul, wanting to strengthen their military cooperation in order to counter the growing “threat” of North Korea.
Le Monde with AFP
The United States and South Korea proposed, Saturday, May 21, their aid to North Korea to fight the epidemic of Covid-19 which rages there. “The two leaders express their concern concerning the recent Epidemia of Covid-19” in North Korea and “are ready to work with the international community to provide assistance” in Pyongyang, according to a joint press release published at the end of a Summit in Seoul between the American presidents, Joe Biden, and South Korean, Yoon Seok-Yool.
“We have offered vaccines, not only to North Korea, but also to China, and we are ready to do this immediately,” Biden said at a press conference in Seoul. “We have not obtained an answer,” he added.
North Korea, whose population is not vaccinated against COVVI-19, is currently facing an epidemic outbreak, with almost 2.6 million cases and 66 dead, according to the latest official figures published on Saturday .
Acceleration of weapons tests
The way in which this health crisis will influence the military decisions of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, is the great stranger that Americans and South Koreans are trying to clarify. In a joint press release published at the end of the summit, the two presidents said:
“Given the evolution of the threat posed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the two leaders agree to start discussions in order to widen the scope and the extent of the exercises and joint military training in and around the Korean peninsula. “
This declaration comes when the South Korean intelligence services warned that North Korea had completed preparations to carry out a nuclear test, which would be the seventh in its history and the first for five years.
The decision to carry out a nuclear test will be decisive or not to set the CAP of American-South-Korean relations during the five years of mandate of President Yoon, explains to the France-Presse the former analyst of the CIA SOO KIM.
“If Kim is testing during the visit of Biden, he will actually help the two countries to find a greater justification to work together on the question of North Korea”, she says.
North Korea has accelerated its weapons tests since the beginning of the year. The talks with a view to his disarmament have stalled since the failure of a summit in 2019 between Kim Jong-un and the American president of the time, Donald Trump.