North Korea breached the recently scrapped 2018 inter-Korean military accord approximately 3,600 times, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday. The number of violations by North Korea, counted from the time the deal was reached six years ago, was announced following three consecutive days of North Korean provocations along the sea boundary. The JCS in Seoul told the press that due to North Korea’s firing of artillery shells near South Korean border islands over the past thre

South Korea plans to launch two more military spy satellites this year to better monitor North Korea, the state arms procurement agency said Monday, a move that could heat up the inter-Korean space race. The Defense Acquisition Program Administration said two synthetic aperture radar satellites are scheduled to be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida in April and November, respectively. Beginning with an electro-optical and infrared satellite in

North Korea has continued to fire shells near the western maritime border area for the third consecutive day since Friday, despite South Korea's repeated calls for an immediate cessation of such military action defying the Sept. 19, 2018, inter-Korean military agreement. The North Korean military fired around 90 shells north of South Korea's front-line island of Yeonpyeongdo from around 4 p.m. to 5:10 p.m. local time, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff. "We issue a grave warni

Evacuation ordered on islands close by; countermeasures mulled by South Korean military

South Korea and the United States have staged a joint live-fire exercise near the border with North Korea to bolster their joint combat readiness, the Army said Thursday. South Korea's Capital Mechanized Infantry Division and the US Stryker Brigade Combat Team from the 2nd Infantry Division were mobilized for the drills, which have been under way in the border city of Pocheon, 46 kilometers northeast of Seoul, since Dec. 29. It runs through Friday. The allies' first joint training of t

South Korea and Poland have clinched a deal to launch a mutual recognition process for military airworthiness certification, Seoul's defense procurement agency said Tuesday. Representatives from Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration and the Polish defense ministry signed the bilateral agreement on airworthiness, a key measure of a plane's suitability for safe flight. Under the mutual recognition process, Warsaw will recognize Seoul's airworthiness certification f

South Korea on Monday returned North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s fresh threats of a nuclear attack with a warning that an attempt at such a move would result in the end of his regime. Shin Won-sik, the Minister of National Defense in Seoul, said in a written New Year’s message that Pyongyang will be made to face the realization that military threats against the country would mark “the beginning of its own downfall.” Late Sunday, the Defense Ministry responded to the North

South Korea's defense chief has apologized over the description of the country's easternmost islets of Dokdo as a disputed territory in the military's newly published educational material for troops. On Thursday, the ministry began recalling the basic educational material after President Yoon Suk Yeol instructed immediate corrections. The material had listed Dokdo among disputes between major countries around the Korean Peninsula, such as China, Russia and Japan. "As I made t

A change of administration in Washington is unlikely to sway South Korea-US joint deterrence of North Korea's nuclear threats, the national defense chief in Seoul said Thursday. Minister of National Defense Shin Won-sik told reporters in a press conference that he doesn’t think the bilateral cooperation on nuclear deterrence will depend on which administration gets elected in the US, “whether it be Biden’s or Trump’s.” Responding to a question on concerns that Donal

South Korea’s Defense Ministry came under heavy criticism Thursday for calling the nation’s easternmost sovereign islets of Dokdo as an “area of territorial dispute,” in its latest military education material for soldiers. President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered the ministry to “immediately correct” the labels in the textbook and said the “mistake should have never happened and should not be repeated.” Yoon’s orders came mere hours after the minist

South Korea's defense chief on Tuesday instructed Navy officials to mercilessly bury North Korean sailors at sea in the event of another North Korean provocation. Defense Minister Shin Won-sik made the remark as he inspected the new 2,800-ton ROKS Cheonan frigate, which was deployed for operations to the headquarters of the Navy's Second Fleet in Pyeongtaek, 60 kilometers south of Seoul, on Saturday. Shin told Navy officials and sailors to "mercilessly bury (the enemy) at sea if t

The Ministry of National Defense in Seoul has characterized sympathizers of the North Korean regime threats within South Korea. In its latest version unveiled Tuesday, the Defense Ministry’s moral training program called sympathizers of the North Korean regime and its ideology “threats from inside that imperil the very foundations of liberal democracy.” The ministry said in the program that among South Korea, there existed forces that “sympathize with North Korea’s

South Korea and the United States have agreed to make efforts to expand the participation of South Korean companies in the maintenance of US military equipment in the Indo-Pacific region, the defense ministry said Tuesday. The two sides discussed such efforts during logistics policy talks in San Diego last Wednesday, attended by Lee Gap-su, head of the ministry's logistics management bureau, and Christopher J. Lowman, US assistant secretary of defense for sustainment. During the talks, the

South Korea staged an independent tabletop exercise simulating a North Korean nuclear attack this year as part of efforts to hone response capabilities against the North's military threats, the defense ministry said Friday. The ministry noted the discussion-based exercise as one of its key accomplishments this year in a meeting presided over by Defense Minister Shin Won-sik to evaluate progress in the Defense Innovation 4.0 plan aimed at bolstering the country's defense capabilities. T

South Korea's Army chief has made a weeklong trip to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to expand military and defense industry cooperation with the Middle Eastern nations, his office said Friday. Gen. Park An-su arrived in the UAE on Saturday for a four-day trip and flew to Qatar on Tuesday for the second leg of his trip that ended earlier in the day. During his stay in the UAE, Park met with members of the Akh unit to encourage the South Korean contingent in the nation. Park also met with