U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Advocates for Keeping the Intelligence Sharing Pact with ROK and Japan
Here is the latest on the pending termination of the GSOMIA:
The United States appears to be heaping pressure on South Korea to retract its decision to end a military intelligence-sharing pact with Tokyo amid North Korea’s continued saber-rattling and specter of tighter security cooperation between China and Russia.
U.S. diplomats have openly voiced concerns over the looming termination of the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), seen as a symbolic platform for Washington to expand its trilateral defense collaboration with the Asian allies.
In August, Seoul announced its decision to end GSOMIA in response to Tokyo’s new export curbs seen as political retaliation for last year’s Korean Supreme Court rulings against Japanese firms over wartime forced labor. It will expire on Nov. 23 unless Seoul reverses the decision.
In a recent interview with Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Marc Knapper, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Korea and Japan, urged Seoul and Tokyo to maintain GSOMIA despite their chilled ties.
“Nobody is happy with the situation. Actually not nobody — there are people happy with the situation, but they happen to be in Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang,” Knapper said in the interview.
Yonhap
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