Stars and Stripes:

Positioning U.S. strategic assets in South Korea is preferable to deploying nuclear arms there to match the threat from North Korea, a senior defense official in Seoul said Thursday.

It is “most desirable” to deter the North using “U.S. strategic assets currently available on the Korean Peninsula,” rather than deploying U.S. tactical nuclear weapons, Vice Minister of National Defense Shin Beom Chul told SBS Radio on Thursday.

The United States has roughly 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea as well as a state-of-the-art Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system capable of intercepting ballistic missiles.

The defense ministry has primarily focused on the timely deployment of “strategic assets” in South Korea, rather than a “nuclear sharing” agreement with the U.S., Shin said.

His comments follow a call by the leader of the ruling People Power Party to scrap a 1991 inter-Korean denuclearization agreement that prohibits the South from possessing or producing nuclear weapons.

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