![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/john-kerry-north-korea.jpg\")
South Korea prepared to welcome U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for the first time in more than a year Sunday, ahead of eagerly awaited talks on dealing with the threat posed by North Korea.<\/h1>\nSouth Korea prepared to welcome U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for the first time in more than a year Sunday, ahead of eagerly awaited talks on dealing with the threat posed by North Korea.<\/h1>\nFollowing a stay in China, Kerry was in line to meet President Park Geun-hye before sitting down for a formal discussion with Seoul\u2019s Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se on Monday.<\/p>\n
Local analysts have been watching the Seoul-Washington relationship closely amid ongoing intrigue over whether South Korea will enhance its missile defense with a controversial U.S. system known as THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense).<\/p>\n
Recent North Korean provocations have offered political momentum to supporters of the deployment of THAAD – after vocal opposition from some South Korean lawmakers, China, and Russia.<\/p>\n
Those concerned parties worry about the prospect of an increasingly powerful American presence on the Korean Peninsula – there are already nearly 30,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.<\/p>\n
The latest developments in North Korea include its claim last weekend to have successfully test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine.<\/p>\n
Intelligence officials in South Korea also revealed this week that the North\u2019s defense minister had been executed last month, becoming another high-profile victim of leader Kim Jong-un\u2019s purge since taking office at the end of 2011.<\/p>\n
Kerry began ramping up the pressure on Pyongyang at a press conference in China on Saturday, when he said North Korea\u2019s \u201cdestabilizing behaviors are unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Kerry did also point to Iran as an example of diplomatic success that could inspire a way through stalled negotiations with Pyongyang (Alex Jensen, Anadolu Agency).<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Korea prepared to welcome U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for the first time in more than a year Sunday, ahead of eagerly awaited talks on dealing with the threat posed by North Korea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,80,63,101,14],"tags":[2381,2071,75877,2070],"class_list":["post-57093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-politics","category-world","tag-china","tag-north-korea","tag-north-korea-america","tag-south-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}