BOSTON — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol delivered a speech and took questions on the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge on Friday the place he spoke concerning the challenges dealing with his nation together with the specter of nuclear weapons from neighboring North Korea.

Yoon pointed to a brand new plan he unveiled with President Joe Biden on Wednesday for intensified nuclear deterrence to counter any North Korean menace.

“If we were to accept nuclear weapons by North Korea then South Korea may have to possess nuclear weapons,” Yoon stated throughout a question-and-answer interval after his speech on the Kennedy School. “This is not something we want to see happen.”

Yoon went on to say that if North Korea had been to make use of nuclear weapons “the result is quite obvious.”

“As long as North Korea recognizes nuclear weapons as a means of survival we have to make sure to deter the usage of such weapons so that the Republic of Korea, our neighboring countries and the entire global community can be protected,” he stated by a translator.

The so-called Washington Declaration unveiled Wednesday by Biden and Yoon requires periodically docking U.S. nuclear-armed submarines in South Korea for the primary time in many years, bolstering coaching between the 2 nations and extra.

PHOTOS: South Korea's Yoon visits Massachusetts Statehouse in Boston

Yoon acknowledged that “there is some opinion in our Korean society that due to increasing nuclear missile threats posed by North Korea that we need to acquire our own weapons.”

But he stated buying nuclear weapons is greater than only a technological drawback. It can also be a fancy political and financial problem.

“I believe that those opinions saying that we need to have our own nuclear arsenal are not considering all these things, all these factors,” he stated. “The North Korean nuclear threat is not a faraway threat. It is imminent. It is at our front door. Therefore we need a very practical solution.”

On a lighter word, Yoon acknowledged the cultural inroads South Korea has cast with pop teams like BTS, the tv survival drama “Squid Games” and flicks just like the Academy Award-winning “Parasite,” however declined to take any credit score.

“Although I’m at the head of the government, I can’t say that the government has really done much to support that,” he stated. “It has been 100% the effort from the private sector and the market itself.”

Earlier within the day, Yoon stopped on the Massachusetts Statehouse as he wrapped up his state go to to the United States.

Yoon was greeted on the steps of the historic gold-domed constructing in Boston simply after midday by Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey.

The two walked up the red-carpeted steps and into the entrance door of the state Capitol whereas the flag of South Korea fluttered within the breeze on one aspect of the constructing’s entrance garden.

Hong Doo-jung, 25, a public sector employee from Worcester, stood throughout from the Statehouse with a number of others protesting what he stated was the South Korean president’s stance on unions. Hong may very well be heard yelling repeatedly “strikebreaker, boo” because the president ascended the steps with Healey.

Yoon and Healey then sat down for a non-public lunch.

The stops in Boston and Cambridge come after Yoon visited Washington.

Yoon spoke to a joint assembly of Congress on Thursday and praised the U.S.-South Korea safety partnership for the reason that Korean War seven many years in the past as “the linchpin safeguarding our freedom, peace and prosperity.”

Biden hosted a state dinner for Yoon and his spouse that included huge names from politics, enterprise, sports and leisure together with actor Angelina Jolie, house enchancment duo Chip and Joanna Gaines, and Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim.

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