The Trump administration has said South Korea must uphold alliance standards in intelligence and counterintelligence — a statement that came just after it emerged that US restrictions on sharing North Korea-related intelligence with Seoul have stretched beyond six months and that the National Intelligence Service was excluded from a trilateral meeting.
According to Yonhap, a senior US administration official said Friday (local time), in a written response to questions about the state of intelligence cooperation between the two countries, that Washington expects South Korea to follow the standards that have defined the alliance for decades — particularly in intelligence and counterintelligence. The official did not specify which standards were meant or say whether the US considers South Korea to have violated them.
The two countries have exchanged classified information under a military secrets protection agreement signed in 1987. Intelligence jointly produced or shared between them is classified as "combined classified" material. The Defense Intelligence Agency told the National Assembly on April 22 that details related to North Korea's uranium enrichment facilities could not be disclosed because they fell under that combined classification.
Similar remarks came from the Department of State the same day. A State Department official told Voice of America that the US expects all allies to handle intelligence and counterintelligence matters appropriately — a comment made in response to questions about reports that Washington had asked for the NIS to be excluded from a trilateral meeting.
The dispute traces back to March 6, when Unification Minister Jeong Dong-young named Guseong in North Pyongan Province — alongside Yongbyon and Gangseon — as a site where North Korea's uranium enrichment facilities are operating, during a National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee session. The US began withholding some satellite-collected intelligence on North Korea from South Korea in early April. Military authorities confirmed this on April 21.
Jeong rebuffed the accusation of a leak, saying he had drawn only on publicly available material to explain policy. National Security Office Director Wi Sung-lac, however, acknowledged on April 23 that information related to Guseong constituted combined classified material under the alliance, while maintaining that the government's position was that Jeong had not leaked intelligence received from the United States.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Jin Yeong-seung told the National Assembly Defense Committee's national audit Thursday that some key intelligence related to North Korea's nuclear program remains restricted and that information sharing has not been fully restored. He said operations related to detecting signs of North Korean missile launches and responding to nuclear and missile threats have not been affected. "The best outcome is for this situation to be resolved quickly," he added.
The NIS is currently absent from the trilateral consultative body. The meeting from which it was excluded was the fifth working-level diplomatic meeting among South Korea, the United States and Japan on countering North Korean cyber threats, held in Washington on June 25-26. About 60 officials from the three countries attended, according to a Foreign Ministry press release. An NIS official acknowledged Thursday that the agency had been excluded at the United States' request. It was the first time the NIS had been left out since the consultative body was launched in December 2023.
The NIS issued a statement the same day saying there had been some misunderstanding several months ago but that it was a matter of the past and that there is no longer any misunderstanding between the intelligence agencies of the two countries. It did not disclose why the US had requested the exclusion or what steps had since been taken.
A senior US administration official had also said in April that Washington expects all partners to protect sensitive US information shared through confidential channels.
shee@heraldcorp.com
