OREANDA-NEWS. A working group has been set up in South Korea to study the prospects of building nuclear submarines as part of efforts to strengthen the national nuclear deterrence forces and increase the country's defense capabilities. This was announced on Thursday by Yonhap.

"Due to the fact that the decision on the construction of nuclear submarines hasn't been made yet, the working group will mainly collect information on this issue", the agency quoted the Navy report submitted to the Audit Committee of the Parliament of South Korea.

“The Navy will have submarines with nuclear power plants in the long term,” the Navy source told the agency. “The decision to build them will be made in accordance with the national interests of the country”. In 2003, Seoul already included the construction of nuclear submarines in the long-term program for the development of new weapons, but about a year later canceled this decision after the relevant data were leaked to the media.

Now, South Korean military experts and a number of parliamentarians have intensified calls for the creation of an atomic submarine fleet so that this year they can begin to develop a project for an atomic submarine with a displacement of 3 thousand tons, which can be put into service by 2031.