US President Donald Trump and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in agreed Friday to revise a bilateral treaty that limits Seoul’s ballistic missile capabilities after the North’s recent launch.
South Korean presidential spokesman Park Soo-hyun said in a press release, cited by the Yonhap news agency, the two leaders had “reached an agreement in principle to revise the ‘missile guideline’.”
The 1979 guideline was last amended five years ago to extend the allowed range of South Korean ballistic missiles to almost 500 miles and increase their payload to 1,100 pounds.
Park reportedly said Trump had agreed to double the weight cap to reach the maximum payload as South Korea had hoped. The White House said earlier the US president also approved planned South Korean purchases of billions of dollars in US military equipment to counter the North.
For its part, the White House said in a statement that Trump and Moon spoke on the phone Friday about North Korean’s “continued destabilizing and escalatory behavior.”
“The two leaders agreed to strengthen our alliance through defense cooperation and to strengthen South Korea’s defense capabilities,” according to the statement.
“President Trump provided his conceptual approval of planned purchases by South Korea of billions of dollars in American military equipment.”
Source: Agencies
