South Korea's Yoon to call for strong international response to North's nukes at ASEAN, G20 summits

South Korea's president says he'll tell world leaders about the need to faithfully enforce UN sanctions on North Korea and block the country's illicit activities to fund its weapons programs when they converge in Indonesia and India for annual summits this week.

South Korea's president says he'll tell world leaders about the need to faithfully enforce UN sanctions on North Korea and block the country's illicit activities to fund its weapons programs when they converge in Indonesia and India for annual summits this week.

President Yoon Suk Yeol is to visit Jakarta for four days starting Tuesday to attend a series of summits scheduled on the margins of a meeting of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders. On Friday, he'll travel on to New Delhi for a summit of the leading rich and developing nations.

"At the upcoming ASEAN-related Summits and the G20 Summit, I intend to urge the international community to resolutely respond to North Korea's ever-escalating missile provocations and nuclear threats and to work closely together on its denuclearization," Yoon said in written responses to questions from The Associated Press.

"As long as the UN Security Council sanctions currently in place are faithfully implemented, North Korea's financial means for developing (weapons of mass destruction) can be blocked to a significant extent," Yoon said.

Despite the economic troubles deepened mainly by its draconian pandemic curbs, North Korea has been performing a record number of missile tests since last year. South Korean officials believe the North's weapons programs are increasingly financed by illicit activities like cyber hacking and the export of banned items. A large number of North Korean workers has also reportedly remained in China and Russia despite a UN order for member states to repatriate all North Korean guest workers -- a key source of foreign currency for the North -- by December 2019.

Yoon said he will particularly use the Group of 20 summit to underscore "the need to actively deter North Korea from stealing cryptocurrency, dispatching workers overseas, facilitating maritime transshipments and other illegal activities -- the main funding sources for its nuclear and missile development."

North Korea's advancing nuclear arsenal is the most vexing security concern for South Korea, but it also poses serious threats to the United States and Japan. North Korea's long-range missiles target the mainland U.S., while its shorter-range missiles are capable of reaching South Korea and Japan, both key U.S. allies.