Military deploys new homegrown bunker buster missile amid NK threats
South Korea has deployed a new homegrown bunker buster missile capable of striking underground enemy targets, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday, in its efforts to deter North Korean military threats.
The military has deployed the Korean Tactical Surface to Surface Missile, capable of conducting simultaneous precision strikes in a short span of time against North Korea's long-range artillery firepower that threatens the greater Seoul area, in the event of a contingency, the JCS said in a release.
The JCS said the latest deployment equips the military with the "overwhelming" capacity to completely destroy the enemy in the event of a contingency.
The tactical ballistic missile, also named Ure, which means thunder in Korean, has been developed to strike North Korean long-range artillery pieces hidden in caves and tunnels. It is known to have a range of 180 kilometers.
Many of the North's long-range artillery pieces are stationed within striking distance of South Korea's wider capital area -- home to nearly half of the country's 51 million population.
"Our military will closely monitor North Korea's various military activities under the robust South Korea-US combined defense posture and maintain the overwhelming capacity and posture to counter any North Korean threat in an overwhelming manner," the JCS said. (Yonhap)
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Korea Herald
an hour ago
- Korea Herald
[Lee Kyong-hee] Restart dialogue toward detente and peace
Some 10 days into the Lee Jae-myung administration, clear signs of a thaw are emerging along the border dividing the two Koreas. Amid a flurry of activities largely focused on economic stimulus, President Lee also instructed South Korean civic groups and the military to suspend cross-border propaganda using balloons and loudspeakers. The next day, North Korea halted its broadcasts of eerie noises to the South, giving border residents their first quiet in about a year. It would be premature to declare this brief respite a prelude to sustained calm on the world's most heavily fortified border. But it would be remiss to ignore the conspicuous signs of efforts to find a breakthrough in the stalled relations with nuclear-armed North Korea. Signals from both Seoul and Washington are cause for cautious optimism. President Lee appears to be intent on fulfilling his campaign promise to restore communications with Pyongyang and ease tensions around the peninsula. Within days of his inauguration, Lee made clear that his approach would differ from his predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol, whose tough-guy stance did little but estrange the North. Lee's timing seems auspicious. US President Donald Trump is reportedly seeking to revive summit talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Trump's overture comes somewhat earlier than expected given that the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East remain in limbo. NK News, an American subscription-based news website headquartered in Seoul, reported last week that North Korean diplomats in New York had refused to accept a letter from Trump to Kim on multiple occasions. At the same time, Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokesperson, said, 'President Trump remains receptive to correspondence with Kim Jong-un, and he'd like to see the progress that was made at the summit in Singapore in 2018, during his first term.' Now, both Lee and Trump are in Kananaskis, Canada, attending the G7 Summit. If they have a sideline meeting — apart from the more urgent issues of tariffs — the two leaders may exchange views on North Korea and Kim Jong-un. If they feel they need a longer time to share their visions of summit diplomacy with Kim against the background of complicated geopolitical challenges, they may promise to meet again soon in Washington. From experience, one can say that, whether for engagement or containment, managing North Korea has mostly been contingent on the political will of leaders in Seoul and Washington. Most notably, the Biden administration marked the only US presidential term since the end of the Cold War during which there was not a single meeting between US and North Korean officials. It largely overlapped with Yoon's tenure in Seoul, when the South Korean leader's hawkish approach not only grounded inter-Korean relations but effectively supported Biden's 'strategic patience,' which amounted to doing nothing. The Yoon and Biden administrations ended up allowing Kim to significantly advance his nuclear and missile capabilities and pursue a major strategic reorientation toward Russia. There have also been times when a liberal South Korean government caused friction with conservatives in Washington by pushing ahead with inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation. In this context, Lee and Trump form a rare duo: both are purportedly determined to improve relations with the North and equally bold, even capable of formulating unconventional approaches with Pyongyang. Lee and his Democratic Party of Korea have long advocated dialogue with Pyongyang as the only practicable way to avoid conflict on the divided peninsula and reduce tensions over the North's nuclear arms development. 'It is important to win a war, and it is even more important to win without a war,' Lee says. 'Yet, the best of all is to make it unnecessary to fight. No matter how costly, peace is better than war.' With Trump back in the White House, Lee will have a rare opportunity to make progress in his North Korea policy. Considering Trump's impulsive temperament and short attention span, Lee may become invaluable in maintaining the momentum for detente with his detail-oriented, pragmatic skills. He will also be tasked with crafting paths to safeguard the South's essential national interests. Kim, knowing that he now has more cards than in 2018, when he met with Trump, will likely take his time in responding to their overtures. But he must be smart enough to realize that this could be his last opportunity to achieve his long-standing goal of lifting the North out of poverty through a real economic transformation. He should know that he can receive assistance from the United States and South Korea, the kind which he can never acquire from Russia or China. Both Lee and Trump will need to make sufficient concessions to bring Kim to the negotiating table, but it will prove to be a worthwhile endeavor if the breakthrough can lead to building permanent peace on the peninsula and ultimately contribute to reshaping the geopolitical landscape in the region. There will be numerous daunting hurdles to overcome, but for the two Koreas, this may be a truly rare chance to remove the clouds of nuclear conflagration and achieve peaceful and prosperous coexistence.
Korea Herald
10 hours ago
- Korea Herald
S. Korea reviews safety measures for nationals in Middle East after Israeli strike on Iran
South Korea's foreign ministry held a virtual meeting Sunday with its officials and heads of diplomatic missions in the Middle East to discuss response measures following Israel's strike on Iran. The video conference, presided over by Yoon Chu-sok, director general for overseas Koreans and consular affairs, focused on reviewing ways to ensure the safety of South Korean nationals in the region, the foreign ministry said. During the meeting, Yoon reiterated the importance of advising South Korean citizens to cancel or postpone travel to both Israel and Iran. He also emphasized the need to urge Korean nationals residing in those countries to remain in safe areas in accordance with guidance from local embassies. The foreign ministry confirmed that no damage or harm to South Korean nationals has been reported in relation to the Israeli strike. Approximately 100 South Koreans are currently staying in Iran. On Friday, the government raised the travel advisories for Israel and parts of Iran from Level 2 to Level 2.5, citing heightened security concerns.
Korea Herald
16 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Hopes rise for revival of inter-Korean projects
With the new liberal administration in power in South Korea, a sense of hope is brewing among businesses for the revival of suspended inter-Korean economic projects. The anticipation is prominent among several South Korean businesses that were forced to leave the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex nearly a decade ago. They now share a hope of returning to the shuttered joint economic zone in the North's border city to either resume their business or retrieve what they left behind, a CEO of a manufacturing company with a factory in Kaesong told The Korea Herald on Sunday. 'There is definitely anticipation building among those who left their businesses in Kaesong,' said Shin Han-yong, former chairman of the Kaesong Industrial Complex Business Association and CEO of Shinhan Trading, a fishing-gear company. 'We have been given a false sense of hope multiple times throughout the past decade — I sincerely hope this time, we will be able to continue our business or be able to retrieve what was left behind (in Kaesong),' he added. Shin's hope is based on Lee's latest pledges to swiftly restore suspended dialogue channels with the North as part of his goal to alleviate the escalating military tension between the two Koreas. The joint economic zone, which opened in 2003, has remained closed since February 2016. Seoul shuttered the complex in response to Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test and long-range rocket launch a month earlier. South Korean factory owners have been banned from returning to the joint complex ever since, and the inter-Korean relations have significantly deteriorated in recent years, with the cross-border dialogue channel now completely cut off. Of the 124 firms that were members of the business association, many suffered significant losses or were forced to shut down after failing to return to the zone in the past nine years, according to Shin. Many held over 80 percent of their means of production in the border city. 'I'm one of the luckier ones,' said Shin, who is currently the head of the Global Business Leader center at Inha University and operates another business. 'We were only able to receive one-third of our investments through government compensations and insurance payouts — it devastated many of us.' In 2016, Shinwon, a clothing manufacturer, announced an impairment loss of 25.7 billion ($18.7 million) a few months after being forced out of Kaesong. It then received a combined 19.3 billion won in compensation from the government and insurance payouts. Echoing Shin's sentiment, Kim Ki-moon, chair of the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises, said that 'several SMEs that had operated in Kaesong Industrial Complex have expressed hope that the inter-Korean economic cooperation would thrive again,' during a meeting between Lee and Korean business leaders on Friday. Kim was the chairman of Romanson, a local watch manufacturer, which has an abandoned factory in Kaesong. 'As one of the first businessmen who entered (Kaesong), I want things to work out,' he added. Inter-Korean business-related stocks surged after Lee ordered the suspension of loudspeaker broadcasts towards the North on Wednesday. The North, in response, halted its propaganda broadcasts near the border on Thursday. According to the Korea Exchange, shares of Hyundai Elevator, the largest shareholder of Hyundai Asan, which owns the rights to the Mount Kumkang tours, inched up 7.25 percent from the previous trading to 84,300 on Thursday. They fell 2.97 percent to 81,800 on Friday. Shares of Ananti jumped 26.7 percent to 9,870 won on Thursday from the previous session and closed higher at 10,600 won on Friday. The local luxury resort developer built a golf course and a hotel in the Mount Kumkang area in the 2000s. The South's tours to the Mount Kumkang area were halted in 2008, following an incident in which a North Korean soldier fatally shot a South Korean tourist. But observers pointed to signs of the North dismantling South Korea-built facilities in both the Kaesong complex and the Mount Kumgang area, and highlighted that the hurdles could be too high to revive certain suspended projects. Inter-Korean ties have historically experienced periods of thaw under the South's liberal governments following the 1950-53 Korean War, which resulted in the division of the country. A period of warming was highlighted globally, especially during the "sunshine policy" era under late liberal President Kim Dae-jung in the late '90s.
