New Zealand's Prime Minister on Tuesday used her first major foreign policy address to announce she is establishing a ministerial position for disarmament amid tensions in the Asia-Pacific region over North Korea's weapons programs.
Jacinda Ardern, whose Labor-led government took the helm in October, said that her Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters would take up the new Cabinet role.
"Risks to global peace and security are growing. The greatest challenge we have today comes from North Korea, situated right here in our region," she told a foreign affairs conference in the capital, Wellington.