South Korean President Park Geun-hye and her Southeast Asian counterparts pressed North Korea on Friday to abandon its nuclear weapons programs, the Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency reported. The leaders also agreed to make the most of a free trade agreement between South Korea and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to expand two-way free trade volume to USD 200 billion by 2020, it said. "We stressed the importance in creating necessary conditions for a complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea," Park said in a joint news conference with Myanmar President Thein Sein at the end of a special summit between South Korea and ASEAN. Myanmar is the rotating chair of ASEAN.
Park and 10 other Asian leaders urged North Korea to fully comply with international obligations under all relevant UN Security Council resolutions and commitments under a 2005 landmark nuclear deal, according to a joint statement issued at the end of the summit. The resolutions call for, among other things, North Korea to stop all nuclear and missile testing.
Still, North Korea conducted nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013, drawing international condemnation and UN sanctions. The North has recently threatened to push for another nuclear test in protest of a UN resolution against its alleged human rights abuse. ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam. The Asian leaders gathered in the South Korean port city of Busan for a two-day special summit to lay out a blueprint for cooperation between the two sides.
The leaders also agreed to deepen trade and investment ties while enhancing dialogue between South Korea and ASEAN for strategic partnership. Two-way trade stood at USD 135 billion last year, up 16 times from 1989 when the two sides launched dialogue, according to South Korean data.