S. Korea to review GSOMIA renewal during NSC meeting Thursday, announcement could follow soon 2019-08-22 09:29:16 KST
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Issue Now S. Korea-Japan Trade Row Number of S. Korean visitors to Japan falls 7.6% in July amid tensions and is expected to ... 2019-08-22 Top 10 S. Korean chemical firms spend 1% of sales revenue on average for R&D in H1 2019-08-22 S. Korea to review GSOMIA renewal during NSC meeting Thursday, announcement could follow soon 2019-08-22 S. Korea to review GSOMIA renewal during NSC meeting Thursday, announcement could follow soon 2019-08-22 Japan's provincial tour businesses will be affected by reduction in flights from South Kor... 2019-08-22 S. Korea to double safety inspections on 17 food items imported from Japan 2019-08-22 N. K's recent missiles pose bigger threat Pompeo urges N. Korea to come to negotiating table 2019-08-21 S. Korea at critical diplomatic juncture 2019-08-19 N. Korea could soon deploy new ballistic missile, guided MRL, tactical missile system: Pun... 2019-08-19 N. Korea releases photos from latest test of weapon resembling U.S. ATACMS 2019-08-17 N. Korea releases photos from latest test of weapon resembling U.S. ATACMS 2019-08-17 North Korea missile analysis 2019-08-16
Most Popular S. Korea, U.S. to start defense cost-sharing talks soon Officials from South Korea and the U.S. are meeting in Seoul on Tuesday for talks on sharing the cost of stationing American troops on the peninsula. The South Korean foreign ministry's delegate Chang Won-sam will meet his American counterpart Timothy Betts. They were the chief negotiators in the previous talks on the 10th Special Measures Agreement a defense cost-sharing deal signed in March for keeping the roughly 28-thousand U.S. troops stationed in the South. Seoul has agreed to pay nearly 858-million U.S. dollars for 2019. The deal expires this year and talks will start soon on the next deal. Chang and Betts won't be directly involved in negotiations for the 11th SMA new teams will be formed to lead the talks from both sides but they will be exchanging views ahead of that. Some sources say Washington has asked Seoul for nearly 5-billion dollars, which would be a sign that the negotiations are going to be tough. In the meantime, the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, will be in Seoul on Tuesday the day the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercise wraps up. Before he gets here, he'll be meeting with his counterpart in Japan as well to strengthen coordination with both countries North Korea's complete denuclearization. The North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un has told President Trump in a letter that he would like for negotiations to resume as soon as the joint drills are over, raising hopes for some progress in the talks. This Saturday, on August 24,the South Korean government will decide whether or not to terminate its military intelligence sharing pact with Japan amid Tokyo's export restrictions. That pact is automatically renewed every year unless either party notifies the other that it's quitting. Meanwhile, the Japanese foreign ministry said on Monday that the foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan Kang Kyung-wha and Taro Kono will sit down for separate bilateral talks on Wednesday in Beijing. They'll both be there for three-way talks with their Chinese counterpart Wang Yi. Kang will be heading for Beijing on Tuesday. Yoon Jung-min, Arirang News. 2019-08-20 S. Korea, Japan hold bilateral meeting in Beijing amid high tensions between two sides South Korea's Foreign affairs minister Kang Kyung-wha and her Japanese counterpart Taro Kono met again Wednesday afternoon to discuss pending issues, but it seems like they simply reiterated their stances, neither side budging. The 35-minute meeting came on the sidelines of the 9th Seoul-Beijing-Tokyo foreign affairs ministers' talks. According to an official at South Korea's foreign ministry, Minister Kang, as expected, expressed great regret over Japan's trade restrictions on Seoul and urged Tokyo to retract them. She also said that there need to be negotiations on the matter, and asked for Japan's efforts there. But to that, Kono is said to have restated the view that the restrictions are not up for discussion because they were imposed for "security reasons." The South Korean official told reporters that Kono also brought up the forced labor ruling, in which Seoul's Supreme Court ordered Japanese firms to compensate the Koreans forced to work for them during Japan's colonial rule. Kono reportedly argued that the issue was resolved in their normalization agreement in 1965, while Kang is to have said that the government respects the judicial authority of the court. As for South Korea sharing military intel with Japan, Kono reportedly asked for Seoul to make a decision on whether to continue. The deadline for either side to cancel it is this Saturday, but Kang said the matter is still under review. South Korean officials have wondered aloud why they should keep sharing military intel with Japan if, as Kono says, there are "security" issues between the two sides. There have been reports that a decision will be made at the weekly National Security Council meeting on Thursday. And with so much emotion on both sides, the ministers asked each other to protect the safety of their people in each other's countries as well. Meanwhile, Kang is also to have again relayed Seoul's grave concerns about Japan's treatment of radioactive water in Fukushima, while urging Japan to make a wise decision. Lee Ji-won, Arirang News. 2019-08-22 Minister Kang says nothing has been decided over military intel sharing pact with Japan South Korea's foreign affairs minister Kang Kyung-wha said there's been no decision yet as to whether Seoul will terminate its military information sharing pact with Tokyo. Minister Kang said this when leaving for Beijing on Tuesday morning for the 9th Seoul-Beijing-Tokyo foreign affairs ministers' talks. "We are still reviewing it. Nothing has been decided yet." An official at the Blue House also reconfirmed this, telling reporters that any decision will consider a quantitative and qualitative assessment of military information and Japan's attitude about future relations. Japan, in July and early August, imposed trade restrictions on South Korea, citing what it said were "security reasons." And as a result, Seoul has been reviewing whether to continue its General Security of Military Information Agreement with Japan. By this Saturday, August 24, the South Korean government will have to decide whether or not to terminate the pact. GSOMIA is automatically renewed every year unless either party notifies the other that it's quitting, in which case, it would expire in November. There have been local reports that say the decision will be made at the weekly National Security Council meeting on Thursday. Now this matter, along with the ongoing dispute over Japan's trade restrictions and the South Korean Supreme Court's ruling on Japanese firms compensating Korean laborers, is expected to top the agenda at the bilateral meeting between Ministers Kang and Taro Kono. The meeting is to take place Wednesday afternoon separately from the trilateral meeting with their Chinese counterpart earlier in the day. At the airport, Kang hinted that at her bilateral meeting with Kono, she will once again urge Tokyo to withdraw its unfair trade restrictions on Seoul. The two diplomats' meeting comes just three weeks after they met on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum in Thailand. There they engaged in a war of words, both trying to win support from other countries, but it remains to be seen whether the two will clash again in Beijing now that their leaders seem to have softened their tones. Meanwhile, the Seoul-Beijing-Tokyo ministerial event is slated to take place for three days starting Tuesday, for the first time in three years, to discuss how the three countries can cooperate and develop their ties. Lee Ji-won, Arirang News. 2019-08-20 S. Korea urges Japan to present clear, detailed plan for Fukushima water South Korea has urged Japan to give a clear and detailed plan of how it will clean up the contaminated water from Fukushima. Seoul's foreign affairs ministry summoned Tomofumi Nishinaga, Japan's economic minister at the Japanese embassy in Seoul on Monday to relay the government's grave concerns about the water, and reports that Japan is planning to release it into the Pacific Ocean. It urged Japan to clarify its position on a report from Greenpeace saying Japan has decided to discharge more than 1 million tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, which would cause serious damage to the whole ocean and to neighboring countries. It then called on Japan to lay out its plans to deal with the issue and share them with the international community. According to a senior official at Seoul's foreign ministry, the Japanese official said he will deliver Seoul's concerns to Tokyo, but he also said that Greenpeace does not represent the Japanese government's official stance. The South Korean official told reporters that discharging the water into the ocean is one of the 6 ways Japan has mentioned before, though it seems like it's not yet been confirmed. Treating and then releasing water is a common way used by many countries to get rid of contaminated water cheaply and quickly. But the South Korean official added that Japan's proposed use of that method is causing protests around the world, because so much contaminated water has never been released before. Other things it proposed as a possible solution, the official said, were to evaporate it or store it for longer. The official said Japan told Korea in July that first, it's still coming up with a solution and a schedule for dealing with the issue, and that it will keep the international community up to date. In the meantime, it said it's working on a range of measures such as creating more storage space. But the concern is that storage space will reach its limit of 1.3-7 million tons in 2022. Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday that it offered to work with Tokyo to find a solution, and the two sides have also been reportedly discussing the formation of a bilateral consultative body on the matter since last year. This comes a week after Seoul's foreign ministry unveiled what it's doing to solve this issue, and urged Japan to clean up its toxic water. Lee Ji-won, Arirang News. 2019-08-20
