The South Korean military on Monday began conducting the Taegeuk military exercise to enhance military readiness posture against North Korean missile and nuclear threats. The four-day military exercise aims to strengthen the South Korean military’s capabilities to manage the crisis and its ability to transition into wartime, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The Taegeuk exercise will enable the S...

Lee, Austin tour US bombers After the meeting, Lee and Austin visited the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington and laid a wreath to pay respects for the sacrifice and dedication of Korean War veterans. Then, Austin and Lee headed to Joint Base Andrews outside Washington for a briefing and tour of a nuclear-capable B-52 Stratofortress bomber and a B-1B Lancer bomber. Lee is the first fore...

North Korea fired three more short-range ballistic missiles Thursday night, after a top North Korean military official denounced South Korea and the US for extending the “Vigilant Storm” air combat exercise. The South Korean military detected three short-range ballistic missiles being fired from the area of Koksan County in North Hwanghae Province toward the East Sea from 9:35 p.m. to 9:49 p.m.,...

WASHINGTON -- South Korea and the United States on Wednesday agreed to step up coordination in monitoring North Korea in a bid to reinforce the alliance’s deterrence amid North Korea’s continuing saber-rattling, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said. South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup visited the headquarters of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency -- an intelligence and combat supp...

North Korea fired 25 missiles and around 100 artillery shells over the course of about 11 hours on Wednesday, the South Korean military said. But one North Korean ballistic missile unprecedentedly flew over the de facto inter-Korean maritime border and landed in waters south of the border for the first time since the division of the Korean Peninsula. In response, the South Korean military fired...

The South Korean and US defense chiefs will discuss how to enhance the alliance’s deterrence and readiness against escalating North Korean threats during their annual security talks, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said Sunday. Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are set to host the 54th Security Consultative Meeting on Thursday at the Pentagon, outside Washington....

North Korea fired two ballistic missiles off the east coast on Friday, hours after the Biden administration warned of toppling the Kim Jong-un regime should it launch nuclear attacks against the United States and its allies in its unveiled nuclear strategy. The South Korean military “detected two short-range ballistic missiles being fired from the area of Tongchon County in Kangwon Province towa...

The South Korean government will dispatch a naval ship and more than 100 personnel to Japan’s international fleet review next month, marking the first time it will participate since 2015. The Yoon Suk-yeol government has decided to accept Japan’s invitation to the international naval event hosted by the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, South Korea’s Defense Ministry announced Thursday. The...

The international community should criminalize and punish human rights violations suffered by North Koreans through all available avenues including criminal prosecutions, the top UN expert on human rights in North Korea said Wednesday, calling for eradicating a vicious cycle of structural impunity. Elizabeth Salmon, the newly-appointed UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in No...

Former South Korean and US military commanders are divided on whether to consider South Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons as a potential option to deter North Korea’s escalating nuclear threats. The policy debate has rapidly evolved over the past few weeks in South Korea in the aftermath of North Korea’s pronouncement on first-use nuclear doctrine and explicit threats to strike targets in S...

The Yoon Suk-yeol government has reiterated that the redeployment of US tactical nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and NATO-style nuclear sharing agreement are currently off the table. The Yoon government has recently reaffirmed its endorsement of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula as heated debates have erupted in Seoul over how to counter North Korea’s escalating threats to fire tactical nu...

The two Koreas exchanged “warning shots” off the western coast after a North Korean merchant vessel “intruded” over the de facto inter-Korean maritime boundary and crossed into South Korean waters early Monday morning. North Korea’s border intrusion came hours before South Korea and the United States began staging their four-day large-scale maritime maneuvering exercise in the West Sea to enhanc...

Hold perpetrators accountable In his speech, Hwang also underscored the Yoon government’s commitment to lending support to hold perpetrators of human rights abuses responsible, taking note that there has been “no progress in securing accountability for human rights violations” in North Korea. “In this context, we are fully in line with the newly appointed UN special rapporteur’s scope of mandat...

North Korea has continued to fire hundreds of artillery shells into inter-Korean maritime buffer zones, while justifying the barrages as “strong countermeasures” against live-fire exercises staged by “enemies” near the inter-Korean border. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday that North Korea unleashed another artillery barrage near the inter-Korean border starting from 12:30 p.m. ...

South Korea and the United States will publicly stage large-scale aerial drills, involving their F-35 stealth fighters, to enhance combat readiness and train for wartime contingencies amid mounting threats from North Korea. Unlike previous years when the allies sought to keep a low profile, the publicized air combat exercise would be an apparent warning message to North Korea. The South Korean a...