South Korea and the United States held inaugural talks this week to discuss nuclear cooperation under a joint fact sheet agreed upon by US President Donald Trump and South Korean leader Lee Jae Myung last year. The talks took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, with Seoul’s push for expanded uranium enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing rights to support its plan to build nuclear-powered submarines being a key topic.
South Korea’s delegation was led by First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo, while the US side was headed by Allison Hooker, the State Department’s under secretary for political affairs. The meeting agenda included both “the issue of expanding enrichment and reprocessing rights” and “the issue of nuclear-powered submarines.”
Discussions on enrichment and reprocessing were tied to revising the existing nuclear agreement and were purely for civilian and commercial purposes. Nuclear-powered submarines would require a separate track since they involve military use of nuclear material, requiring a separate agreement under US energy law.
The two countries agreed to work toward producing substantive results as soon as possible, establish a framework to review progress during the year, and accelerate future consultations. The joint fact sheet issued in November stated that Washington supported a process leading to South Korea’s civil uranium enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing for peaceful uses, and approved South Korea building nuclear-powered attack submarines.
South Korea aims to launch its first nuclear-powered submarine by the mid-2030s, using low-enriched uranium fuel and building the vessel domestically. Under the current nuclear agreement between the countries, South Korea is not allowed to reprocess spent nuclear fuel or enrich uranium for military purposes, despite possessing nuclear reactors to generate power.