Leaked US intelligence documents suggesting that Washington spied on South Korea have put the country’s president in a delicate situation ahead of a state visit to the US, the first such trip by a South Korean leader in 12 years.
The documents contain purportedly private conversations between senior South Korean officials about Ukraine, indicating that Washington might have conducted surveillance on a key Asian ally even as the two nations publicly vowed to reinforce their alliance.
Since taking office last year, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has put a bolstered military partnership with the US at the heart of his foreign policy to address intensifying North Korean nuclear threats and other challenges.
The April 26 summit with US President Joe Biden is seen as crucial to winning a stronger US security commitment, and resolving grievances over the Biden administration’s economic and technology policies.
The leaked documents were posted online as part of a major US intelligence breach. The papers viewed by The Associated Press indicate that South Korea’s National Security Council (NSC) “grappled” with the US early last month over a US request to provide artillery ammunition to Ukraine.
The documents, which cited a signals intelligence report, said then-NSC director Kim Sung-han suggested the possibility of selling the 330,000 rounds of 155mm munitions to Poland, since getting the ammunition to Ukraine quickly was the US’ ultimate goal.
South Korea, a growing arms exporter, has a policy of not supplying weapons to countries at war. It has not provided arms directly to Ukraine, although it has shipped humanitarian aid and joined US-led economic sanctions against Russia.
Yoon’s government said it discussed the leaked papers with the US and they agreed that “a considerable number” of the documents were fabricated.
The South Korean government avoided any public complaints about the US and did not specify which documents were faked.
“There’s no indication that the US, which is our ally, conducted [eavesdropping] on us with malicious intent,” South Korean Deputy National Security Director Kim Tae-hyo told reporters on Tuesday at Dulles Airport near Washington at the start of a trip aimed at preparing for the summit.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Yoon government’s stance invited criticism from liberal rivals, who called on the government to lodge strong protests with the US.
They also suspected what they call Yoon’s hasty relocation of his presidential office to a South Koran Ministry of National Defense compound in central Seoul might have left the office vulnerable to wiretapping.
“As a sovereign nation, we must sternly respond to the spying of state secrets, even if it was committed by an ally” with whom South Korea has “bonded over blood,” said Park Hong-geun, floor leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party.
In an official statement, Yoon’s office said it maintains tight security, including anti-eavesdropping systems.
It called the opposition party’s attempts to link the office relocation to the spying allegation “diplomatic suicidal acts” that shake South Korea’s national interests and its alliance with the US.
The situation is unlikely to threaten the country’s alliance with the US that was forged during the 1950-1953 Korean War, many experts say.
“No big damage is expected on the Korea-US alliance, as it seems both governments share the view that they would focus on the alliance, more concretely on a successful state visit by Yoon,” said Bong Young-shik, an expert at Seoul’s Yonsei Institute for North Korean Studies.
If Yoon returns with some achievements, South Koreans would conclude that he put up with the spying allegations “because bigger matters were at stake,” Bong said.
However, if the visit amounts to a “pomp-only trip,” people could question whether South Korea “made lots of concessions.”
One possible achievement for Yoon would be if South Korea takes on a role in the management of US nuclear weapons in the face of North Korea’s advancing nuclear arsenal.
Other wins would be securing US benefits for major South Korean businesses involved in the making of electric vehicles and easing US restrictions on technology exports to China, which has been a major manufacturing base for South Korean chipmakers.
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
‘ARBITRARY’ CASE: Former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila has maintained his innocence and called the country’s courts an instrument of oppression Former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) president Joseph Kabila went on trial in absentia on Friday on charges including treason over alleged support for Rwanda-backed militants, an AFP reporter at the court said. Kabila, who has lived outside the DR Congo for two years, stands accused at a military court of plotting to overthrow the government of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi — a charge that could yield a death sentence. He also faces charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the anti-government force M23, the charge sheet said. Other charges include “taking part in an insurrection movement,” “crime against the
RSS