President Yoon Suk Yeol called Wednesday for strengthening surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities to deal better with North Korea's nuclear and missile threats. Yoon made the remark as he presided over a meeting of the presidential defense innovation committee, noting the North's recent launches of a spy satellite and an intercontinental ballistic missile. "North Korea's provocations will continue according to their timetable, so we must always have a full readiness pos

US B-1B strategic bombers took part in a joint aerial exercise that South Korea, the United States and Japan held over waters around the Korean Peninsula on Wednesday in a show of force after North Korea's launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile. The exercise took place over waters east of the southern island of Jeju, where the air defense identification zones of South Korea and Japan overlap, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, amid heightened tensions in the wake of the North's f

The US military in South Korea fully returned its former base, Camp Market, to the Asian country Wednesday, the defense ministry said, as part of a broad relocation scheme to consolidate its bases across South Korea. The US Forces Korea handed over about 257,000 square meters of land in Camp Market near Seoul to South Korea, four years after returning some 216,000 square meters of land in the base in the first phase. The agreement was made in a meeting of the South Korea-US Status of Forces Agre

A trilateral scheme has kicked off for sharing data on North Korean missiles in real time among the defense chiefs of South Korea, Japan and the US. The Ministry of National Defense in Seoul said Tuesday its prelaunch inspections have found the missile data-sharing scheme to be “completely ready for operations” and currently “operating smoothly.” The Defense Ministry said the scheme would allow the three allies to detect North Korea’s missiles and share related info

The security battalion comprising South Korean and US guard forces responsible for securing the Joint Security Area has reinstated armaments in response to North Korean soldiers carrying firearms across the inter-Korean border, according to the United Nations Command. The two Koreas had withdrawn firearms from the JSA in the truce village of Panmunjom in late October 2018, around a month after signing the Inter-Korean Comprehensive Military Agreement. The JSA is the sole location where soldiers

President Yoon Suk Yeol on Monday asked his national security team for an “instant and overpowering response to any North Korean provocations” following the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile by Pyongyang earlier in the day, which raised military tensions on the peninsula. The North’s fifth ICBM launch of the year was fired into the sea off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula on Monday morning, as previously predicted by a senior Seoul official last week. In a N

South Korea and the US held another round of talks on nuclear deterrence in Washington DC on Friday, as part of US President Joe Biden’s commitment to step up protection from North Korea. According to a Seoul official, both sides agreed to complete guidelines on joint nuclear defense strategy by mid-2024 -- a timeline that falls before the US presidential election. South Korea’s principal deputy national security adviser, Kim Tae-hyo, told reporters that Seoul and Washington have dec

A US nuclear-powered submarine arrived in South Korea on Sunday, Seoul's defense ministry said, amid concerns North Korea could launch an intercontinental ballistic missile this month. The USS Missouri (SSN-780), a Virginia-class attack submarine, entered a key naval base in Busan, 320 kilometers southeast of Seoul, earlier in the day, according to the South Korean Navy. "With the deployment of the USS Missouri, we plan to strengthen naval exchanges and cooperation with the United Stat

South Korea and the United States agreed Friday to complete the establishment of guidelines on the planning and operation of a shared nuclear strategy by the middle of next year, a Seoul official said, after the allies held key deterrence talks on countering growing North Korean threats. Seoul's Principal Deputy National Security Adviser Kim Tae-hyo made the remarks after he and Maher Bitar, the US National Security Council (NSC) coordinator for intelligence and defense policy, led the second se

A former US Forces Korea commander voiced concerns Thursday over the chances of misunderstanding and miscalculation leading to conflict on the Korean Peninsula, as he pointed to North Korea's unwillingness for dialogue and its close ties with China and Russia. Speaking at a forum, Robert Abrams, who led USFK from 2018-2021, said that "we are back where we were" in 2017 when tensions heightened due to a series of North Korean provocations, including its sixth nuclear test and balli

Two Chinese and four Russian military planes on Thursday entered South Korea's air defense zone without providing prior notice, prompting responsive measures by the South Korean military. The simultaneous intrusion marks the first occurrence of its kind since June this year. The six aircraft entered the Korea Air Defense Identification Zone, or KADIZ, off its east coast between 11:53 a.m. and 12:10 p.m. local time, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said on the same day in a statement

South Korea's Vice Defense Minister Kim Seon-ho held talks with the Netherlands' top defense official this week to bolster security and arms industry ties, Seoul's defense ministry said Thursday. Kim met Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren in The Hague on Tuesday as President Yoon Suk Yeol is on a four-day state visit to the country from Monday. During the talks, the two sides agreed to begin working-level talks at an early date for South Korea's planned participation as a

Defense Minister Shin Won-sik met representatives of eight member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on Wednesday to expand cooperation in security and the defense industry, the defense ministry said. Shin held the meeting with the NATO representatives of the United States, Britain, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Romania and Poland, who began a three-day visit to Seoul earlier in the day. Their rare visit to South Korea, which is not a NATO member state

South Korea's new top general held phone talks with his US counterpart for the first time Tuesday and agreed to strengthen cooperation against North Korea's military threats, the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The talks between JCS Chairman Adm. Kim Myung-soo and his US counterpart, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., took place amid heightened tensions after North Korea scrapped a 2018 inter-Korean pact designed to prevent clashes along the border. During the talks, the two generals

A United States Forces Korea F-16 Fighting Falcon on Monday morning crashed near Gunsan, a North Jeolla Province city 178 kilometers south of Seoul, during routine training, according to the air base there. Kunsan Air Base, home to the 8th Fighter Wing, said in a release that the fighter jet crashed into the sea off the west coast of South Korea at around 8:43 a.m. The pilot was rescued by the Republic of Korea Maritime Forces after evacuating the aircraft, the release said. He is in a stable co