Accra:A senior U.S. official has highlighted the necessity for South Korea to maintain the standards of their long-established alliance, with a specific emphasis on intelligence and counterintelligence matters. This comes amidst rising concerns regarding friction in intelligence cooperation between the two countries.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the U.S. official's statement was made in response to questions about the current state of bilateral intelligence cooperation. Speculation about tension arose after South Korea's National Intelligence Service was reportedly left out of a trilateral meeting in June with Japan concerning North Korean cyber threats, allegedly at the behest of Washington.
The concerns over intelligence cooperation have been further intensified by revelations from South Korea's Unification Minister, Chung Dong-young, who publicly disclosed information about a North Korean uranium enrichment facility in Kusong earlier this year. Although Chung claimed the details were already public, this disclosure appears to have prompted the U.S. to restrict Seoul's access to certain intelligence on North Korea.
Additional signs of strain in U.S.-South Korea relations emerged when a U.S. visa for Rep. Jung Chung-rae, a former leader of South Korea's ruling Democratic Party, was delayed. Jung had planned to visit the U.S. for a parliamentary audit of South Korean diplomatic missions. He addressed the visa delay on Facebook, calling for caution in making remarks that could harm the alliance.