South Korea welcomed the landmark agreement between world powers and Iran to curb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, expressing hopes for progress in international efforts to denuclearize North Korea.


“Our government expects that the conscientious implementation of the measures under this accord will contribute to completely resolving the international community’s concerns over Iran’s nuclear program and to regional peace and stability and the strengthening of the non-nuclear proliferation regime,” Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said in a press release.

“Our government also expects that we can enter into the ultimate process of resolving North Korea’s nuclear problem by making meaningful progress through earnest negotiations among the concerned parties,” it added.

Seoul has carefully watched the developments in the negotiations among the foreign ministers of Iran, the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, as the agreement could influence the international efforts toward North Korea’s denuclearization.

The multilateral talks on Pyongyang’s denuclearization have been stalled since late 2008. In the absence of negotiations, the communist state has refined its nuclear weapons technology. It has recently claimed to have entered the technical stage of miniaturizing and diversifying its nuclear arms.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)