South Korean Left Criticizes US Embassy for Not Paying Rent

Via a reader tip comes news that the Korean left has found another issue to criticizes the United States with:

The U.S. Embassy in South Korea has not paid rent for using its site since 1980, a ruling party lawmaker claimed Thursday, citing data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Rep. Shim Jae-kwon of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) said the South Korean government owns the site of the U.S. Embassy in central Seoul.

The amount of rent over the past 38 years exceeds 90 billion won ($79 million).

The lawmaker insisted that operations of the United States Agency for International Development-Korea (USAID-Korea), and its predecessor United States Operations Mission (USOM) have long since come to an end, and this removes legal grounds for free use of the embassy building.

The foreign ministry stated in 2008 that it is discussing the matter with the U.S.

The lawmaker noted the countries signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in 2005 regarding the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, and signed an implementation agreement of the MOU in 2011, but no tangible efforts or progress have been made on the matter since.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but if the North Koreans establish an embassy in South Korea does anyone think they will pay rent?

All this criticism over the US embassy rent is about promoting anti-Americanism with the Korean public.  We saw these same type of criticism happen during the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations as well.  I would not be surprised if in the coming months we start seeing claims about out of control GI crime, unpaid parking tickets, and USFK environmental pollution which are all from the Korean lefts playbook of how to promote anti-Americanism.