On the 28th, Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong argued that North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch provocation “cannot be seen as a failure of the peace process on the Korean Peninsula.”
Minister Jeong emphasized this as he attended the plenary session of the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee at 2 pm on the same day. Minister Jeong said, “We have not yet achieved the final goal we want to reach through the peace process on the Korean Peninsula,” he said.
According to North Korean media on the 25th, North Korea launched an ICBM on the 24th. It has been four years and four months since the launch of the ICBM in November 2017. Nevertheless, Minister Jeong evaluated it as “the process of continuing the peace process on the Korean Peninsula.”
Chung Eui-yong, ‘It’s not hostile’ to North Korea’s ICBM provocation
At the plenary session on the same day, Rep. Cho Tae-yong of People’s Strength rebuked Minister Jeong, saying, “The process of peace on the Korean Peninsula, which is said to be ongoing, has actually failed, and he has been officially declared dead by this ICBM launch.”
In response, Minister Jeong countered that “there was no substantial progress toward denuclearization (the Korean peninsula), which is a contradictory story.” .
People’s Strength Representative Tae Young-ho asked, “The South and the North (in the course of the last meeting) said that they would stop all hostile acts in all spaces and military spaces. Is the ICBM launch an act of hostility?”
Minister Jeong replied, “It is difficult to call it a hostile act,” but “a serious threat to security.”
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