President Obama approved a civilian nuclear energy cooperation deal with South Korea on Thursday, the same day he spoke to South Korean President Park Geun-hye by phone.
Park was supposed to visit Obama in Washington next week to discuss the growing threat from North Korea’s nuclear program and her country’s strained relationship with Japan, as well as cooperation on environmental, health and cyber-security issues.
But the spread of the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and Park’s sagging poll numbers forced her to cancel the trip, so the two leaders talked by phone instead.
Obama agreed to reschedule the planned June 16 visit to the White House so the two leaders can discuss “important issues of mutual interest, including our joint efforts to counter the North Korean nuclear and missile threat and the crucial role [South Korea] plays in maintaining peace and stability in the region,” according to a White House read-out of the call.
The president also offered condolences to the Korean people and the families of those who have lost their lives during the MERS outbreak, and underscored that the United States stands ready to provide additional assistance as needed.
Washington and Seoul had been working together over the past four years to revise their 1974 nuclear cooperation agreement to ensure Seoul’s demand to process spent nuclear fuel and enrich uranium didn’t overstep Washington’s concerns about proliferation.
While the new pact continues to bar Seoul from reprocessing and enrichment, it allows the U.S. ally to start research into new ways to work with nuclear fuel recycling, and to produce low-level enriched uranium within certain limits.
