S. Korea to blast N. Korea for use of banned chemical at OPCW meeting

Published : Mar 6, 2017 - 16:07 Updated : Mar 6, 2017 - 16:07

South Korea plans to bring up North Korea's recent use of the lethal VX nerve agent in the assassination of its leader's half brother in a bid to draw international attention to the North's chemical weapons threat during an international meeting this week, the foreign ministry said Monday.

The foreign ministry's Deputy Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs Choi Jong-moon plans to shed light on the case in his keynote speech to be delivered on Tuesday at an executive council session of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in the Hague, Netherlands, the ministry said.

Deputy Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs Choi Jong-moon (Yonhap)

The meeting of the OPCW, an international organization in charge of implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention, is to run from Tuesday through Friday.

On Feb. 13, two women smeared the substance on the face of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur International Airport in what the Malaysian police concluded was a North Korea-led assassination.

In the speech, the South Korean deputy minister plans to point to the fact that an internationally banned chemical weapon of mass destruction was used in a murder at an international airport, hoping to elicit international condemnation.

He also plans to call on countries that are not signatories to the CWC to join the convention, including North Korea, according to the ministry.

With the South Korean mention, the North Korean issue is expected to be discussed at the session.

On the sidelines of the Hague visit, Choi also plans to hold talks with the OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu as well as representatives from the US, Japan, Britain and Australia, the ministry said. (Yonhap)