Seoul extends intelligence-sharing pact GSOMIA with Tokyo, to Washington’s relief
- Move comes after US pressed its two allies to maintain pact, which would have expired amid sharp deterioration in ties between Japan and South Korea
- Japan’s Shinzo Abe says South Korea made strategic choice in deciding to stick with agreement, but Seoul warns pact could ‘be terminated at any time’
But after a flurry of last-ditch diplomacy and just six hours left on the clock, Seoul announced it would “conditionally” suspend the expiry of the agreement.
Kim You-geun, a national security official at Seoul’s presidential Blue House, confirmed that the accord, known as the General Security of Military Agreement (GSOMIA), would not be allowed to lapse at midnight.
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-hwa, before leaving for Japan to attend the G20 foreign ministers meeting, said diplomats from both sides would continue negotiations to work through bilateral differences.
“We will continue efforts to persuade Japan to lift export restrictions while we retain the option to terminate GSOMIA at any time,” she said.
The Japanese government said it had agreed to resume discussions with South Korea on resolving their dispute over the export controls
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Japan’s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi stressed the pact was “important”, adding: “Given the current state of security conditions in this region, I believe South Korea made this decision from a strategic standpoint.”
“I stressed the importance of cooperation between Japan and South Korea, and Japan, South Korea and the United States,” Abe said.
The United States on Friday welcomed South Korea’s decision, calling it a move that “strengthens trilateral cooperation” in the face of regional security challenges.
“This decision sends a positive message that like-minded allies can work through bilateral disputes,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement, apparently referring to historical and trade disputes that have increasingly soured the relationship between Tokyo and Seoul.
“Given our shared regional and global challenges, decisions to strengthen trilateral cooperation are timely and critical,” the statement said.
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Seoul and Tokyo are both major US allies, faced with an overbearing China and wayward North Korea.
The GSOMIA pact, signed in 2016, allows the two US allies to share military secrets, particularly over North Korea’s nuclear and missile capacity.
Washington had frequently urged its two main allies in the region to bury the hatchet, stressing that the only countries to benefit from the row were North Korea and China.
Scrapping the pact would have been “a huge setback for one of the pillars of East Asia’s security that Japan, South Korea and the United States have established”, said Kenichiro Sasae, a former top Japanese foreign minister official and ambassador to the US.
US Defence Secretary Mark Esper said on a recent trip to Asia that the only beneficiaries from the pact being scrapped would be North Korea and China, and urged the two allies to “sit down and work through their differences”.
South Korea had promised to continue sharing secrets via the US as a third party, but this had raised concerns about efficiency in an emergency situation.
Chonnam University political science professor Yoon Sung-seok said Seoul’s decision was a tactical move, as allowing the pact to expire would result in Washington applying greater pressure on it to share in the costs of stationing 28,500 US troops and other military assets in South Korea.
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The United States reportedly demanded that South Korea raise its annual contribution fivefold to around US$5 billion.
Reactions from the South Korean public to the continuation of GSOMIA were largely divided, with Moon’s supporters praising the move as “sensible” and “realistic” while his detractors described the move as “capitulation”.
Yonsei Institute for North Korean Studies analyst Bong Young-sik said: “This is a loss of face for the Moon government. It was problematic from the beginning for Seoul to link issues of history with security cooperation. South Korea has ended up giving the US the impression that it could be a liability in defence cooperation in the region.”
Additional reporting by Associated Press, Reuters and Kyodo