South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol announced Monday that he would offer a major aid package to Pyongyang in exchange for denuclearization, a type of offer long scorned by North Korea.

Believing that denuclearization is “essential” for a lasting peace on the peninsula, Yoon Suk-yeol detailed his offer that would include food, energy, but also aid for the modernization of infrastructure such as ports, airports and hospitals.

This plan “will dramatically improve North Korea’s economy and its people’s standard of living in stages, if the North stops developing its nuclear program and embarks on a genuine and substantial process of denuclearization,” Yoon said. the anniversary of the end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945.

Several tests this year

Last week, Pyongyang threatened to “root out” South Korean officials, accusing Seoul of being behind the country’s Covid-19 outbreak. In July, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he was “ready to mobilize” his nuclear capabilities in the event of war with the United States or South Korea.

For specialists in the region, the chances of Pyongyang accepting this offer are very slim, since the North, which invests a large part of its GDP in its weapons program, has long made it clear that it would not conclude such an offer. IT’S OKAY.

North Korea carried out a record series of weapons tests this year, including launching a full-range ICBM, its first since 2017.

Washington and Seoul have repeatedly warned in recent months that North Korea is preparing to carry out another nuclear test, which would be the seventh in its history.