Humanitarian assistance and exchanges are still allowed, even under the sanctions regime on North Korea. Therefore, in parallel with sanctions and pressure, we must also employ humanitarian assistance. The meeting of separated families is also a measure to ensure human rights.

Kim Jong Un is an unreasonable leader and a very dangerous person. Yet he is the person who has effective control over North Korea, and he is the person who has the authority to denuclearize North Korea.

Humanitarian assistance and exchanges are still allowed, even under the sanctions regime on North Korea. Therefore, in parallel with sanctions and pressure, we must also employ humanitarian assistance. The meeting of separated families is also a measure to ensure human rights.

The comfort-women agreement that we made with Japan during the last administration is not accepted by the people of Korea, particularly by the victims. They are against this agreement. The core to resolving the issue is for Japan to take legal responsibility for its actions and to make an official apology. But we should not block the advancement of Korea-Japan bilateral relations just because of this one issue.

For now we must continue to strengthen our sanctions and pressure on North Korea.

As a sovereign state, we should have operational command of our forces returned to us at an appropriate time. Korea and the United States have already reached an agreement where we will receive operational control of our forces when the conditions are met.

Korea and the U.S. have maintained a combined forces command system for a long time. Even if we were to get operational control back, as long as this combined system is maintained, our countries will continue to have combined security, and U.S. forces will continue to play their part in our security.