Australia Has no Qualification to Talk About Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament

http://www.mfa.gov.kp/view/article/16440

 2023.1.31.

A few days ago, the Australian foreign minister Penny Wong contributed an article to British newspaper “Guardian” as it marks 50 years since Australia ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

The article said that Australia, since joining the NPT, has been an example to the world on non-proliferation and disarmament and continued as follows:

“Some have tried to argue that our ambition to acquire nuclear-powered submarines under our trilateral AUKUS partnership risks undermining our exemplary non-proliferation credentials. That assertion misses a crucial fact” the submarines we propose to acquire are nuclear-powered, not nuclear-armed. Other countries in the Indo-Pacific have been operating nuclear-powered submarines for decades.”

The article also tried to justify its ambition to possess nuclear-powered submarines. It quotes: “In 2022, North Korea conducted more than 60 ballistic missile launches. Five Chinese ballistic missiles were reported to have fallen in Japan’s exclusive economic zones. Russia’s reckless and desperate threats to unleash nuclear warfare still loom large, while Iran refuses to comply with its non-proliferation obligations.”

It is a well-known fact that Australia has not been restricted in its open act of nuclear proliferation based on its agreement with the US and the UK on transfer of technology to build nuclear-powered submarines including that of weapon-grade nuclear material after AUKUS, the product of “new cold war”, was formed on September 15, 2021.

It is a well-known fact.

Recently, it is committed to beefing up its military build-up. It is now pushing ahead with the work to conclude a contract to purchase one billion USD’ worth mines on a plea of “threats” from somebody.

This has made Australia to be “an example to the world” in breaking global non-proliferation regime and speeding up arms-buildup in the region and the rest of the world. Thus it has become an object of criticism and concern from most of the countries including its neighbors, going beyond some countries.

Far from repenting of its perilous and wrong actions, the Australian foreign minister justified them in every possible way. This stands as an intolerable mockery of the international community.

In particular, he picked on such independent states as China, Russia, Iran and the DPRK. These countries, without exception, are the ones that the U.S. attempts to curb their growth by every possible means in a bid to isolate and weaken them, maintaining the highest level of hostility and vigilance. This constitutes an act of self-explaining to the whole world Australia’s true colors as a storming party and stooge of the U.S. for fulfilling its foreign strategy.

The U.S. had officially announced the nuclear-arming of its troops stationed in south Korea in July 1957, and deployed 1,000 nuclear weapons in the 1970s and 1,720 nuclear weapons in the 1980s. Thus, the whole territory of south Korea has turned into the largest nuclear arsenal in the Far East.

Moreover, after issuing the “nuclear posture review” in 2002 where it designated the DPRK as the top priority target of its nuclear attack, it has deployed various kinds of nuclear strike means in south Korea on a regular basis, thereby turning the Korean peninsula into the largest theatre of thermonuclear war in the world.

Not content with its regular dispatch of warships and planes to the vicinity of the Korean peninsula since 2018, Australia has even dispatched its tanker plane to participate in the largest-ever U.S.-south Korea joint air drill “Vigilant Storm” from October 31 to November 5, 2022. It is quite preposterous for Australia, which directly took part in usurping our state’s sacred dignity and sovereignty, to talk this and that about our exercise of right to self-defense.

Australia, a member of the “AUKUS” representing its first letter, is running high fever in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines from the U.S. and the UK.

It is the general view of the fair international media that Australia, together with the U.S. and the UK, is the main culprit in causing instability of the region and the world.

It would be better for Australia to bear in mind that if it advances sophistry that can work with nobody, it will only be faced with harsher rejection and isolation from the international community.

 

Ri Jong

Member of Korea-Asia Association