US intelligence leak complicates summit with South Korea

SEOUL (AP):

Leaked US intelligence documents suggesting that Washington spied on South Korea have put the country’s president in a delicate situation ahead of a state visit to the US, the first such trip by a South Korean leader in 12 years.

The documents contain purportedly private conversations between senior South Korean officials about Ukraine, indicating that Washington may have conducted surveillance on a key Asian ally even as the two nations publicly vowed to reinforce their alliance.

Since taking office last year, conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol has put a bolstered military partnership with the United States at the heart of his foreign policy to address intensifying North Korean nuclear threats and other challenges. The April 26 summit with President Joe Biden is seen as crucial to winning a stronger US security commitment and resolving grievances over the Biden administration’s economic and technology policies.

The leaked documents were posted online as part of a major US intelligence breach. The papers viewed by The Associated Press indicate that South Korea’s National Security Council “grappled” with the US in early March over an American request to provide artillery ammunition to Ukraine.

The documents, which cited a signals intelligence report, said then-NSC Director Kim Sung-han suggested the possibility of selling the 330,000 rounds of 155 mm munitions to Poland, since getting the ammunition to Ukraine quickly was the United States’ ultimate goal.

South Korea, a growing arms exporter, has a policy of not supplying weapons to countries at war. It has not provided arms directly to Ukraine, although it has shipped humanitarian aid and joined US-led economic sanctions against Russia.

Yoon’s government said it discussed the leaked papers with the United States, and they agreed that “a considerable number” of the documents were fabricated. The South Korean government avoided any public complaints about the US and did not specify which documents were faked.

“There’s no indication that the US, which is our ally, conducted (eavesdropping) on us with malicious intent,” Kim Tae-hyo, Seoul’s deputy national security director, told reporters Tuesday at Dulles Airport near Washington at the start of a trip aimed at preparing for the summit.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.