The foreign and defense ministers plan to visit the National Assembly Friday to urge the swift ratification of a revised pact on sharing the cost of keeping U.S. troops here, officials said. In January, the allies renewed their agreement on co-shouldering the financial burden of keeping 28,500 American forces here, but the agreement has been pending in the parliament due to the objections of the...

At least two MV-22 Osprey squadrons will take part in one of the largest-ever joint amphibious landing drills to be staged by South Korea and the United States, a Pentagon official said Wednesday. The allies plan to open this year's Ssang Yong (double dragon) exercise next week on the southeast coast of Korea as part of their broader annual military training code-named Foal Eagle. There will be...

Cyberwarfare officials were found to have posted some 30,000 political comments over the last several years in an apparent violation of the military rules on political neutrality, a government source said Wednesday. The figure is double the previous number, which the Ministry of National Defense announced in its interim report last December after referring 11 officials to the military prosecutio...

South Korea’s arms acquisition watchdog said Monday it has discovered that 241 local defense contractors fabricated about 2,800 test results of parts and raw materials for military equipment, vowing tighter regulations. The Defense Agency for Technology and Quality announced the results after the inspection of 280,199 items provided by parts manufacturers in the last seven years, expanding a pre...

South Korea placed the remains of 437 Chinese soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War in coffins on Monday before sending them back to their homeland for final burial, Seoul’s Defense Ministry said. South Korean and Chinese officials have been working together to repatriate the remains of Chinese war dead that have been temporarily buried at a burial ground in Paju, just south of the demil...

South Korea will upgrade its present PAC-2 air defense system and buy PAC-3 missiles next year to improve its anti-ballistic missile capability against North Korea, the state arms procurer said Wednesday. South Korea currently operates 48 PAC-2 missiles imported from Germany, and seeks to adopt the advanced interceptors as part of plans to build the indigenous Korea Missile Defense System. The m...

A Korean-made K-11 airburst assault rifle exploded during a demonstration live-fire session on Wednesday, leaving three soldiers with minor injuries. The explosion came just three months after the military resumed its procurement of the rifle, which went through rigorous tests and readjustments following a rifle blast in October 2011. “We planned to conduct three demonstration sessions. In the ...

U.S. Forces Korea said Wednesday it will continue to pay its South Korean employees despite a delay in Seoul‘s parliamentary approval of a bilateral defense cost-sharing pact. Seoul and Washington renewed in January their Special Measure Agreement on sharing the cost of stationing U.S. forces here. The pact has not been approved by the South Korean parliament due to opposition lawmakers’ object...

South Korea will upgrade its present PAC-2 air defense system and buy PAC-3 missiles next year to improve its anti-ballistic missile capability against North Korea, the state arms procurer said Wednesday. South Korea currently operates 48 PAC-2 missiles imported from Germany, and seeks to adopt the advanced interceptors as part of plans to build the indigenous Korea Missile Defense System. The m...

WASHINGTON ― More than 10,000 Marines from South Korea and the United States will kick off their largest-ever joint amphibious landing training late this month, the Pentagon said Monday. This year’s Ssang Yong (double dragon) exercise will be held from March 27 to April 7 on the Korean Peninsula, involving about 7,500 U.S. Marines, 2,000 U.S. Navy personnel as well as 3,500 South Korean Marines ...

This week, the United States and Japan will discuss ways to deal with a broad range of regional security threats, including territorial tensions with China and the North Korea issue, as the allies study how to revise bilateral defense cooperation guidelines, officials said Monday. The two sides opened an inaugural working group meeting in Hawaii to follow up on a landmark deal between their fore...

More than 10,000 Marines from South Korea and the United States will kick off their largest-ever joint amphibious landing training late this month, the Pentagon said Monday. This year's Ssang Yong (double dragon) exercise will be held from March 27 to April 7 on the Korean Peninsula, involving about 7,500 U.S. Marines, 2,000 U.S. Navy personnel as well as 3,500 South Korean Marines and 1,000 Sou...

An enlisted soldier with cancer was found to have been left untreated for some seven months after a military doctor mistakenly judged him to be healthy when X-ray images revealed a tumor developing near his lungs, according to Army officials. The sergeant, whose name was withheld, was diagnosed with stage-four mediastinal tumors on Feb. 27 after he was sent to a hospital three days earlier for c...