Tokyo reacted angrily to the rulings with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe demanding South Korea take “necessary measures” regarding the order saying Seoul was violating an international agreement. It said all outstanding bilateral issues were settled in the 1965 treaty. Although Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon agreed with Abe to resolve the ongoing friction via open dialogue a few weeks ago on a visit to Tokyo, no visible progress has been made so far.
A senior presidential aide said South Korea won't renew the GSOMIA unless Japan withdraws its July decision imposing restrictions on certain exports to South Korean companies.
“Regarding the GSOMIA, South Korea can extend the pact if Japan cancels its earlier retaliatory trade measures. We decided to terminate the GSOMIA, which was a tough decision, because Japan directly mentioned security reasons as the main reason for its imposition of the trade curbs. South Korea therefore had no option but to make the decision,” the aide said.
“If South Korea reverses course without any change in Seoul-Tokyo relations that means our ending of the GSOMIA was not thought through. Actually, this wasn't the case,” he added.
Meanwhile, Esper pressed his South Korean counterpart Jeong to maintain the bilateral intelligence sharing pact.
“The GSOMIA is an important tool by which South Korea, the U.S. and Japan share effective information, particularly in times of war. An expiration of the GSOMIA will have an impact on our effectiveness, so we urge all sides to sit down and work through their differences,” Esper told reporters in a joint press conference at the defense ministry.
“The only ones who will benefit from the expiration of the GSOMIA and continued friction between Seoul and Tokyo are Pyongyang and Beijing,” Esper added. “That reason alone should be powerful enough for us to sit down and make sure we restore our alliance to where it was so we can work together to respond to our common threats and challenges.”
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2019/11/356_278807.html
South Korea wants the ability to pillage Japan’s intellectual property, or they refuse to renew the military intel agreement?
Let the South Korean plicks go it on their own.
A bit off subject but what happened about Japan’s missing F-35?
Not a good thing.
And the worst part is the dispute that South Korea is using to hang up this agreement with Japan is not even over the military sharing agreement or anything related to it. The current Leftist president of South Korea is using a separate issue as his excuse for scuttling the military intelligence sharing agreement. For this he gets to sound, to his fellow South Korean Leftists as “hard on Japan”, while it is North Korea who will benefit from the agreement with Japan being scraped. It shows Moon’s priortities are 100% political interests and not truly South Korean national interests.
The U.S. withdrawing from Korea might cause a change of mind in Seoul. And withdrawing from Japan might do the same with Tokyo.