South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo and US Defense Secretary Mark Esper will discuss cost sharing for the upkeep of 28,500 American troops stationed here at a teleconference next month, Seoul’s Ministry of Defense said Tuesday. “The date and agenda haven’t been finalized yet. We’re in the middle of consultations with the US,” ministry spokesperson Choi Hyun-soo told a press briefing. Seoul and Washington arranged the teleconference after the cancellati

Defense May 26, 2020

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s message Sunday that he would bolster nuclear capabilities sparked fresh speculation in Seoul over Pyongyang’s intentions, with some analysts here suggesting a new missile launch while others weigh in on less drastic approaches. Presiding over a key military meeting, his first public appearance in three weeks, Kim vowed to ramp up his country’s “nuclear war deterrence,” Pyongyang’s state media reported Sunday, with no ind

North Korea May 25, 2020

Sixty South Koreans who were stranded in Africa due to suspended air travel amid the coronavirus pandemic returned home late Friday on a charter flight. South Korea’s military ran the flight Monday to rotate a batch of troops for the Hanbit Unit stationed in South Sudan, and on the way home, Korean residents in Africa boarded the plane in adjoining Ethiopia. Thirty-six had come from Ghana, 13 from Kenya, 10 from Ethiopia and 1 from Sudan. Medical and other support staff were on board to

Defense May 22, 2020

The United Nations Human Rights Committee said Wednesday a group of North Korean workers who defected to South Korea in 2016 are not being detained against their will, as claimed by lawyers who submitted a complaint to the UN body on behalf of the defector’s self-proclaimed families. In 2016, 13 North Korean restaurant workers in China defected to South Korea. A year later, one of them, the manager, claimed Seoul’s spy agency orchestrated the defection to politicize the event. Prog

North Korea May 22, 2020

Lew Byong-hun, the first deputy commander of the Combined Forces Command jointly operated by South Korea and the United States, died Thursday at age 96, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a press release. A former four-star Army general, Lew was one of the joint command’s founding members in 1978. After leaving the command a year later, he went on to serve as chairman of Korea’s JCS until 1981. US Forces Korea Commander Robert Abrams, who heads the joint command, off

Defense May 21, 2020

North Koreans remain vulnerable to the novel coronavirus pandemic, despite Pyongyang’s repeated claims that it has no infections, the US State Department said Wednesday. The department, asked by Radio Free Asia on Wednesday for comment on the COVID-19 situation in the North, said the country was still underprepared to deal with the disease, noting its stance on the matter remains unchanged after three months.  In February, the State Department said it supported the e

North Korea May 21, 2020

The United States is closely monitoring risks to global supply chains from cyberattacks by North Korea and other countries amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, US Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf said Tuesday. “I talked a lot about nation state threats, and how those manifest in different ways whether it’s China, Iran, or everything in between, North Korea. From a cyber perspective, we’re very concerned about that,” he said at a US Chamber of Commerce even

North Korea May 20, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic, which saw its first known patient in China and its highest death toll in the US, is fueling the intense rivalry between the two nations, as US President Donald Trump blames China for the outbreak and Beijing slams back, rejecting an international inquiry into the source of the pathogen. International relations experts say the friction between the two countries over the disease is an extension of their chronically sour relations marred by an acrimonious trade dispute.

Foreign Affairs May 18, 2020

South Korea’s military said Sunday that it will screen all new conscripts for the novel coronavirus, starting Monday for eight weeks to test about 6,300 draftees a week. The decision comes in response to the recent surge in infections among young people linked to a cluster that emerged in Seoul’s nightclubs and bars in the Itaewon neighborhood. Before trainee soldiers join boot camps, they will be swabbed and their specimens will be pooled together and tested for COVID-19 infectio

Defense May 17, 2020

North Korea is estimated to have spent $620 million on its nuclear weapons program in 2019, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons said Wednesday in its latest annual report on nuclear spending. That is about 6 percent of the regime’s defense budget, which accounts for roughly one-third of its gross national income. The figures came from two previous estimates of the regime’s military spending based on South Korean and international data.  In 2009

North Korea May 14, 2020

South Korea’s military on Wednesday reported three more COVID-19 infections linked to a cluster that recently emerged in the Itaewon neighborhood, Seoul, bringing the tally to 11. The three soldiers apparently contracted the coronavirus from a staff sergeant at the Cyber Command in central Seoul. Of all the cases uncovered so far, four soldiers and five officers worked at the Cyber Command, and the other two officers were stationed at an Army base in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.

Defense May 13, 2020

North Koreans under leader Kim Jong-un live in dire human rights conditions, facing execution for watching or circulating South Korean TV dramas, the Korea Institute for National Unification said in its latest white paper on human rights in the North. The extensive application and frequent implementation of the death penalty in the communist regime could be a breach of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a multilateral treaty the United Nations adopted to safeguard individ

North Korea May 12, 2020

The United States is focused on drawing North Korea back to denuclearization talks and is willing to show flexibility in reaching balanced agreements to reflect the promises the two countries exchanged at the Singapore summit in June 2018, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday. Asked by South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency to respond to President Moon Jae-in’s latest push to resume inter-Korean exchanges, the top US diplomat reiterated that Washington supports inter-Korean coope

North Korea May 11, 2020

US President Donald Trump told a press briefing Thursday that South Korea had agreed to pay “substantial money” to the US for the upkeep of the 28,500 American troops stationed here, repeating what he had told Reuters a week earlier. “It costs us a lot of money. And if we’re going to defend countries, they should also respect us by making a contribution,” Trump said. The Trump administration is reportedly pushing Korea to pay about $1.3 billion, up 49 percent fro

Defense May 8, 2020

South Korea’s military said Friday that traveling for off-base on assignments will resume, easing the anti-virus restrictions put in place since Feb. 22, a day after it reported its first infection. Decisions on overnight stays outside the base and visits at the installation for active-duty troops, still banned, would be announced later, the military said, adding it would gradually lift the ban as risk diminishes. The relaxing of anti-virus rules was in line with the government’s

Defense May 8, 2020