S.Korea’s strategy is to concurrently pursue development and production phases from early 2024

Yoon orders prompt, firm punishment when NK provokes

Four South Korean Navy service members have been detained for an investigation into allegations that they assaulted a fellow in a rowdy ceremony celebrating his planned discharge from military service, officials said Wednesday. A total of seven Navy personnel, including the four, are purported to have assaulted the man for around two hours at a unit in Donghae, 279 kilometers east of Seoul, on J...

South Korean defense firm Hanwha Corp. signed a contract with Indonesia's national police last month to supply 25 armored vehicles by 2024, its officials said Wednesday. The company inked the deal with the National Police of the Republic of Indonesia on June 15 following an international bidding process for the project to procure the multi-role Barracuda vehicles. Hanwha did not specify the cont...

S. Korean, US F-35 stealth fighters to conduct combined exercise for the first time

S. Korea hasn’t formed consultative body as local residents have refused to cooperate

Army Gen. Kim Seung-kyum was set to take office as the new head of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) on Tuesday as Seoul seeks to cement its alliance with Washington and beef up defense to counter North Korea's evolving military threats. Kim will become the first general to take the JCS helm without a parliamentary confirmation hearing since 2006, when the legislative procedure was intro...

South Korea and Malaysia jointly held a virtual subpanel session of a regional defense forum involving the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Tuesday to discuss cybersecurity cooperation, Seoul's defense ministry said. The experts' cybersecurity working group of the ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) kicked off the two-day session as Seoul seeks to deepen cooperatio...

Tours to the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom will resume after months of suspension caused by COVID-19, the UN Command (UNC) said Thursday. The UNC said it decided to restart the tours to the Joint Security Area in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, in line with the South Korean government's continued easing of antivirus restrictions. It did not specify when the tour...

A subcommittee of South Korea's state defense procurement committee has endorsed a basic proposal to purchase some 20 F-35A radar-evading fighters, Seoul officials said Wednesday. The Defense Project Promotion Committee's subcommittee approved it on June 9 in a push for a 3.9 trillion won ($3 billion) project to introduce the fighters, manufactured by the US defense giant Lockheed Martin from 20...

PYEONGTAEK -- South Korea's Navy on Wednesday held a ceremony to commemorate the sacrifices of sailors killed in an inter-Korean naval skirmish near the western sea border two decades ago. The memorial event took place at the Navy's Second Fleet in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, with the attendance of some 300 people, including the sailors' families and fellow troops. The naval confl...

S.Korea plans to participate in NATO’s annual cyber defense exercise next year

N. Korea move seen as preparation for deploying tactical nuclear weapons along the border

Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup on Thursday reaffirmed South Korea's commitment to further strengthening its alliance with the United States, pointing to the "very grave" security threats from North Korea. He was speaking at a breakfast meeting with former and current South Korean and US officials, as concerns have grown about the possibility of the North carrying out its seventh nuclear experimen...

Soaring Eagle open to public for first time since 2017 amid North Korea’s continuing ballistic launches