After Washington’s decision to cut its military presence in Germany, local experts said Monday that it is unlikely the United States will pursue a similar course of action here. But the South Korean government should be ready for anything given US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable style, they added. 　 In a surprise move, Trump ordered the Pentagon to reduce the number of US troops in Germany by roughly a third, to 25,000, according to the Wall Street Journal on Friday. Seoul

Nearly 120 South Korean soldiers who perished during the Korean War may return home later this month, ending a long journey from North Korea via the United States. Their remains have been kept for nearly two years now at the US Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency since arriving from the North in July 2018, when Washington received from Pyongyang its war remains that also included Korean soldiers, following their historic first summit in June the same year. Their belated homecoming, if realized,

The South Korean government’s latest move to ban anti-Pyongyang leaflet launches by civic groups following North Korea’s strong complaints has stirred up controversy over the freedom of expression. Seoul’s Unification Ministry revealed Thursday a plan to legislate a law banning the leaflet launches, describing them as “tension-building acts,” with the presidential office Blue House vowing stern responses if the launches pose a danger to national security. The leaf

Seoul’s Unification Ministry said Thursday it was considering legislative measures to ban the contentious anti-Pyongyang leaflet campaign, just hours after North Korea threatened to scrap a bilateral military pact, saying the campaign raises hostilities prohibited by their prior agreement. “We were already looking into ways to prevent tension hikes at the border. Plans for legislative change had been under way,” Unification Ministry spokesperson, Yoh Sang-key said, adding that

South Korea is seeking to revise a law on inter-Korean affairs to allow North Korean-run businesses in its territory, in spite of international sanctions currently placed on the North, the Unification Ministry said Monday. The revised South-North Exchange and Cooperation Act would also allow local municipalities to run businesses with the North without an intermediary while giving greater freedom to South Koreans to interact with their Northern peers. “We’re aware that the new cha

A total of 25,000 masks will be delivered to Korean independence fighters who engaged in military and diplomatic campaigns against Japan’s 1910-45 occupation of the Korean Peninsula, to help them combat the coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry of Patriots and War Veterans said Monday. About 500 fighters and bereaved families in 15 countries will receive the supplies with a letter of gratitude from the minister. The ministry has been assisting independence fighters and war veterans to cop

US President Donald Trump’s surprise invitation Saturday to South Korea to the expanded Group of 7 summit in September, along with three other countries, hints at Korea’s elevated status, and is also a double-edged sword amid the deepening rivalry between the US and China, experts here said Sunday. They called on Seoul to draw up a strategy so as not to risk upsetting its security alliance with Washington or economic ties to Beijing, because the summit could shift to a US-led,

The view that authoritarian states will do a better job of responding to the coronavirus than democracies has been proven wrong, said renowned US scholar Joseph Nye -- best known for pioneering the “soft power” theory -- pointing to South Korea as a positive example. “Authoritarian leaders have used COVID-19 as an excuse to deepen their power and control,” Nye said in an online forum broadcast live on YouTube on Wednesday, whereas in “notable democracies” su

South Korea should make sure that inter-Korean exchanges proceed in parallel with North Korea’s denuclearization, the US State Department said Tuesday, reiterating its earlier stance made public several times. The department, asked by Voice of America about Seoul’s latest decision to ease restrictions on engagement with Pyongyang, said Washington supports inter-Korean cooperation, but that it should be in “lockstep with progress on denuclearization.” On Tuesday, Seoul&

Both Koreas breached their armistice agreement when they exchanged gunfire at the border on May 3, the United National Command said Tuesday, after a weeklong investigation by its multinational team. The UN Command, which administers the Demilitarized Zone separating both Koreas and enforces the armistice that halted the 1950-53 Korean War, said it could not definitively determine whether North Korea opened fire on a South Korean guard post intentionally or by mistake. Seoul expressed regret

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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