South Korea moves to ‘normalise’ military pact with Japan

South Korea’s foreign ministry has been asked to ‘proceed with the needed measures to normalise’ the 2016 General Security of Military Information Agreement

Seoul and Tokyo have increasingly sought to bury the hatchet in the face of Pyongyang’s growing aggression and flurry of missile tests

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South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol (left) and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida toast
during a dinner together at a restaurant in Tokyo on Thursday. Photo: YNA/dpa

Published: 2:51pm, 18 Mar 2023Updated: 5:27pm, 18 Mar 2023

South Korea will fully implement a key military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan, a defence ministry official said on Saturday, as the two countries move to thaw long-frozen relations and renew diplomacy to counter Pyongyang.

At a fence-mending summit on Thursday, the neighbours agreed to turn the page on a bitter dispute over Japan’s use of wartime forced labour.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who has been keen to end the spat and present a united front against the nuclear-armed North, had flown to Japan to meet Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the first such summit in 12 years.

North Korea recently test-fired a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile. Photo: KCNA/KNS/dpa

According to a pool report, Yoon told Kishida he wanted a “complete normalisation” of a 2016 military agreement called the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), which enables the two US allies to share military secrets, particularly over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile capacity.

Following the summit, South Korea’s foreign ministry was asked “to proceed with the needed measures to normalise the agreement”, said a defence ministry official, who declined to be named.

The foreign ministry is expected to send a formal letter to its Japanese counterpart soon, the official added.

Seoul had threatened to scrap GSOMIA in 2019 as relations with Tokyo soured over trade disputes and a historical row stemming from Japan’s 35-year colonial rule over the peninsula.

In response, an alarmed United States said that calling off the pact would only benefit North Korea and China.

South Korea moves to ‘normalise’ military pact with Japan

South Korea’s foreign ministry has been asked to ‘proceed with the needed measures to normalise’ the 2016 General Security of Military Information Agreement Seoul and Tokyo have increasingly sought to bury the hatchet in the face of Pyongyang’s growing aggression and flurry of missile tests