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Post by Admin on May 9, 2017 18:29:16 GMT
South Koreans have elected a new president who is wary of the United States and wants to foster warmer ties with North Korea, opening a new and potentially difficult chapter in relations with Washington. Moon Jae-in, the candidate of the liberal Democratic Party, claimed victory Tuesday night after securing an unassailable lead. With 65 percent of the votes counted, Moon had 39.6 percent. His closest rivals, conservative Hong Joon-pyo and centrist Ahn Cheol-soo, had 26 percent and 21 percent, respectively. Both Hong and Ahn conceded while the votes were still being counted. “From tomorrow onwards, I will serve as your president,” Moon told cheering crowds of supporters in Gwanghwamun Plaza, the central Seoul square where hundreds of thousands of South Koreans held candlelight protests against former president Park Geun-hye, leading up to her impeachment and triggering Tuesday’s election. “I will become the president for everyone, even those who didn’t support me,” said Moon, who lost to Park in the 2012 presidential election. Moon’s victory will end almost a decade of conservative rule in South Korea and the hard-line approach toward North Korea that had Seoul walking in lockstep with Washington. While the Trump administration is calling for “maximum pressure” on North Korea, South Korea will have a president who has pledged to resume engagement with the North — including reopening an industrial park that the previous administration said was funneling cash to the regime in Pyongyang.
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Post by Admin on May 10, 2017 18:28:58 GMT
Relations with the United States hang in the balance when South Koreans head to the polls at a tumultuous political time to elect a new president Tuesday. Human rights lawyer Moon Jae-in, 64, the candidate of the left-leaning Democratic Party of Korea, leads polls by a large margin over his nearest competitor, conservative Hong Joon-pyo. Moon’s stances, particularly over relations with neighboring North Korea, could open a rift with the U.S., in contrast to former president, Park Geun-hye, whose impeachment over corruption charges in March triggered the election. Park had been more hawkish in dealing with North Korea. Moon has been critical of the U.S. deployment of an anti-ballistic missile defense system known as THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) in South Korea, a military move Park had endorsed. The U.S. began deploying elements of THAAD in late April on an abandoned golf course outside of Seoul and announced it was operational earlier this week. Moon argued that the U.S. should have waited for a new president to make the final decision to install the $1 billion system, which the Pentagon apparently rushed to make operational for fear Moon might block it if elected.
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Post by Admin on May 15, 2017 18:34:34 GMT
Whatever the type of missile, the launch forces the new South Korean leader, Moon Jae-in, to put dealing with Pyongyang, at least for now, above the domestic economic agenda he'd made a priority during his early days in office. Moon, a liberal who favors a softer approach to the North than his conservative predecessors, called an emergency national security meeting Sunday, but he didn't immediately make any statement on the launch.
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Post by Admin on May 29, 2017 18:55:12 GMT
Russian President Vladimir Putin has told a South Korean presidential envoy that he is willing to mediate between South and North Korea by dispatching his emissary to Pyongyang in a bid to help relieve tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Song Young-gil, a special envoy of South Korean President Moon Jae-in, quoted Putin as saying, in their Wednesday meeting, "I am willing," in response to his question asking whether he could send an emissary to Pyongyang to learn of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's intention and the country's internal situation. "The North Korean nuclear issue could never be resolved through war. That's impossible," Song also quoted Putin as saying during their 45-minute meeting in Moscow. "The problem should be solved through dialogue because using sanctions alone has limitations, and it could also work against North Korean people and incur humanitarian issues." The president also stressed the need to resume the forum of the six concerned countries, known as the six-party talks, to negotiate ways to deal with the North Korean issue as well as the need to open direct talks between North Korea and the United States.
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Post by Admin on Jun 29, 2017 18:36:51 GMT
Since taking office, Mr. Moon has ordered his government to stop installing additional components of the Thaad battery until it completes a domestic review, including an environmental assessment. That move has provoked fears in Washington that Mr. Moon might be looking for an excuse to cancel the deal, even though he insisted that it did not mean that his government would reverse the decision made under Ms. Park. On Monday, the South Korean foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, said the domestic review was to strengthen public support for the missile system by shoring up its political legitimacy. Calling the deployment “an alliance decision,” she said South Korea would “continue to collaborate on the basis of mutual trust.” “My government has no intention to basically reverse the commitments made in the spirit of” the alliance, Ms. Kang said at a forum jointly organized by the South Korean daily JoongAng Ilbo and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington.
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