North Korea urged to abandon nuclear weapons

South Korea’s foreign minister today praised front-line US troops protecting the border with North Korea, and called on the communist state to abandon a quest for nuclear weapons that has raised tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula.

Ban Ki-moon told soldiers with the US Army’s 2nd Infantry Division at their headquarters in Uijeongbu, north of the capital Seoul, they were “the heroes securing and maintaining the peace and prosperity thus built”.