South Korea
Seven Years since the Sewol Ferry Disaster
April 16, 2021 marks seven years the Sewol ferry disaster, which killed more than 300 people, mostly high school students. This makes us look at how work is progressing during the reign of Moon Jae-in to identify and ultimately punish the perpetrators of this tragedy. From the author’s point of view, the Sewol problem - from the standpoint of establishing justice - consists...
Continuing the Story of the Hijacked Tanker and Frozen Funds
In early 2021, we wrote about the Iranian seizure of a South Korean tanker and how this precedent actually demonstrates a number of unresolved problems, most notably the problem of Iranian assets in South Korean banks intended to pay for Iranian crude oil imports and frozen because of US sanctions. Recall: Iran has repeatedly urged...
Two Parallel Visits, or “We’ll Dance with Both of You”
Two important visits took place on April 2-3, 2021, the combination of which perfectly illustrated the difficult situation in which Seoul finds itself amid the standoff between Beijing and Washington. On the one hand, the US is South Korea’s main military and political ally, and the policy of rebuilding alliances that the new President Biden has addressed is trying to further strengthen...
