WEEKLY NEWS HIGHLIGHTS (2023.07.15)
Welcome to Weekly News Highlights where we wrap up your week with a glimpse back into what went on in the past week. I'm Kim Dami in Seoul. 31 NATO member states and four partner nations -- South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand -- gathered for the annual summit in Vilnius, Lithuania this week. Topping the agenda were North Korea issues, the war in Ukraine and emerging security threats. North Korea fired a solid-fuel Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday in a show of discontent over the Washington Declaration adopted by South Korea and the U.S. in April. The regime's leader Kim Jong-un warned of more military action as long as there is U.S. hostility against the regime. The ASEAN Regional Forum also took place in Jakarta this week. Top diplomats from South Korea and Japan met and discussed Tokyo's plan to discharge Fukushima wastewater and North Korean nuclear and missile threats. President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sat down again for talks, this time in Lithuania, where this year's NATO summit took place. For a good 30 minutes, the two discussed a variety of topics of mutual interest and concern, including Japan's plan to release the Fukushima wastewater this summer. President Yoon asked if Korean experts can be involved in monitoring the release process. Let's turn to our Kim Do-yeon for more. 31 leaders of NATO member countries met in Lithuania this week, but soon there will be more than 31. On the eve of the annual summit, Türkiye agreed to back Sweden's bid to join NATO after months of blocking the country's application over a multitude of concerns like claims that the Nordic nation allows members of recognized Kurdish terror groups to operate in the country,... most notably the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party. Türkiye also recently accused Sweden of allowing Islamophobic demonstrations, such as the burning of the Quran. NATO also said Ukraine will be invited to join the security alliance in the future but with no exact timeline. NATO's lack of clarity over offering Ukraine membership into the military alliance led President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to say that "a window of opportunity is being left to bargain Ukraine’s membership in NATO in negotiations with Russia",... meaning it will give Russia the motivation to "continue its terror." And North Korea issues were also among the top agenda items at this year's NATO summit. There, President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed to secure a tighter collective security against the regime's provocations. Our Oh Soo-young has more. NATO talks on North Korea also came with the regime's firing of its solid-fuel Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday. The last time it fired that type of missile was back in April. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned of more military action as long as there's U.S. aggression against the North. Choi Min-jung has this report. The day before Wednesday's provocation, the sister of the North Korean leader, Kim Yo-jong, threatened that there would be consequences for the U.S. sending spy planes over Pyongyang's exclusive economic zone. The threat came with North's claims that a U.S. spy plane entered the regime's EEZ eight times on Monday. According to Pyongyang, the North's warplanes repelled a U.S. spy plane that flew over its EEZ, calling it a "grave violation of the regime's sovereignty and security." Territorial airspace extends 12 nautical miles from the coast, whereas the EEZ extends 200 miles and is not considered a country's airspace under international law. Experts say such actions could be a way for the North to justify its provocations. Another possible reason could be the first Nuclear Consultative Group meeting between South Korea and the U.S. that'll take place in Seoul next Tuesday. Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff urged the North to immediately stop creating tension with such false claims. A U.S. State Department spokesperson on Tuesday pointed out the regime's allegations are groundless and also unfounded as "high seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply" in areas where the spy planes flew. South Korea's Foreign Minister Park Jin engaged in a number of diplomatic gatherings in Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, where the annual ASEAN-related meetings took place this week. There, he sat down for talks with his Japanese counterpart,... ahead of Tokyo's plan to discharge Fukushima wastewater soon. For this edition of Weekly Focus, we have our foreign affairs correspondent Bae Eun-ji to give us more details on this. Welcome, Eun-ji. Thanks for having me. So Eun-ji, Japan's Fukushima wastewater discharge was no doubt on top of the agenda... #ASEAN_Regional_Forum #ARF #Fukushima #Waste_water #Musician #Cellist #LeeJeonghyoun #Boston_Symphony#Weekly_News #Highlight #Arirang_News 📣 Facebook : / arirangtvnews 📣 Twitter : / arirangtvnews 📣 Homepage : https://v2.arirang.com/ 2023-07-15, 12:00 (KST)
