SEOUL: South Korean opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, widely seen as the frontrunner in a presidential by-election triggered by the removal of President Yoon Suk Yeol last week, officially announced a presidential bid on Thursday, vowing to heal a starkly divided nation through economic growth.
Lee, who narrowly lost the 2022 election to Yoon, led the liberal Democratic Party’s campaign to oust the former president over his December declaration of martial law.
Lee recently stepped down as the party’s chairman to focus on campaigning for the June 3 election. He is considered the clear frontrunner in party’s primary. Kim Dong-yeon, the Democratic governor of Gyeonggi province and a longtime financial policymaker, also told reporters Wednesday that he intends to run for president.
Yoon’s downfall has left the conservative People Power Party in disarray, with roughly 10 politicians expected to seek the nomination, reflecting a split between Yoon loyalists, who still control the party’s leadership, and reformists calling for a fresh start.
In a video message, Lee said that Yoon’s martial law saga exposed the country’s deep divisions and social conflicts, and argued that the root cause was a widening rich-poor gap. He promised aggressive government spending to jolt economic growth and ease income polarization.
“We have more than we did in the past, but wealth is too concentrated in certain areas,” Lee said. “With economic growth rates declining worldwide, it has become difficult to maintain and develop an economy solely on the strength of the private sector. However, with government-led talent development and extensive investments in technological research and development, we can revive the economy.”
Lee said it was crucial to maintain a robust alliance with the United States and to pursue three-way cooperation with Japan, but he stressed that South Korea’s national interest should come first in “every decision.”
Lee, who has served as a lawmaker, provincial governor and city mayor, is adored by supporters for his outspoken style and has long positioned himself as an anti-elitist. His critics view him as a populist who stokes division and demonizes conservative opponents while failing to offer realistic funding plans to achieve his ambitious goals.
Kweon Seong-dong, floor leader of the People Power Party and a staunch Yoon loyalist, said that if Lee becomes president, he will “ruthlessly wield the sword of dogmatism and retribution” and further deepen the country’s divisions.
Lee also has his own set of legal troubles, facing five different trials for corruption and other criminal charges.
Earlier this month, the Constitutional Court upheld Yoon’s impeachment by the legislature and formally removed him from office over the martial law decree, triggering a presidential by-election within 60 days. The next president will serve a full 5-year term.
Former PPP leader Han Dong-hoon, who heads the party’s anti-Yoon faction, was expected to announce his presidential bid on Thursday. Among the conservatives’ presidential hopefuls, former Labor Minister Kim Moon Soo is considered to be the most pro-Yoon.
Kim, Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo and senior PPP lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo – a former computer software entrepreneur and three-time presidential candidate – have declared their intentions to run for president. Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon is expected to enter the race later.
South Korean opposition leader opens presidential bid following Yoon’s ouster
https://arab.news/j29u3
South Korean opposition leader opens presidential bid following Yoon’s ouster
- Lee Jae-myung is widely seen as the frontrunner in the presidential by-election
- South Korean opposition leader narrowly lost the 2022 election to ousted president
Putin eases access to Russian citizenship for Georgian breakaway regions
Georgia and Russia have no diplomatic relations since the 2008 war
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday signed a decree simplifying access to Russian citizenship for people from two Georgian breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Under the decree, applicants will no longer be required to permanently reside in Russia to get citizenship, or prove their knowledge of the Russian language or culture.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia are recognized by most of the world as Georgian territory, but has been under de-facto Russian control since a brief 2008 war between Moscow and Tbilisi.
In Abkhazia, another pro-Russian president recently won an election after the previous one was ousted following tense protests over a bill giving Russians easier access to coastal property along the Black Sea.
Georgia and Russia have no diplomatic relations since the 2008 war, but critics accuse the current Georgian ruling party of being pro-Russian, and claim it came to power as a result of a rigged election.
Georgia, which shares a border with Russia, declined to join international financial and economic sanctions against Moscow over its Ukraine offensive, or to support Kyiv with military equipment.
Erdogan sees end in sight for US sanctions on Turkish defense sector
ISTANBUL: Turkiye has seen an easing of US sanctions on its defense sector since Donald Trump became president, with steps toward ending the measure advancing quickly, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday.
“We can easily say that there is a softening in CAATSA,,” he told reporters while returning from a European summit, referring to US sanctions legislation.
In 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on Ankara over its purchase of an S-400 Russian surface-to-air missile defense system under a 2017 law known as CAATSA, which aims to limit Russia’s military influence.
The move soured ties between the two NATO member countries.
It also booted Turkiye out of its F-35 program, with Washington saying the presence of the S-400 would allow the Russians to collect information on the stealth jet’s capabilities.
Erdogan said Turkiye had raised the sanctions issue with Trump and his newly-appointed envoy to Ankara, Tom Barrack
“With my friend Trump taking office, we have achieved a more open, more constructive and more sincere communication on these issues,” Erdogan added, saying Turkiye valued “every positive step in this direction.”
“I believe we will overcome the CAATSA process much faster. As two great NATO allies, there should be no restrictions or obstacles in the field of defense between us,” he said.
Turkiye’s partnership with the United States was “of vital importance for the establishment of stability in our region and the world” he said.
In March, Erdogan spoke to Trump about the need to finalize a deal to let Turkiye buy US F-16 fighter planes and be readmitted to the development program for F-35 warplanes.
Turkiye has been seeking to modernize its airforce, and has been seeking to buy 40 Eurofighter Typhoons which are built by a four-nation consortium grouping Germany, Britain, Spain and Italy.
Militants kill at least 23 in Nigeria attack, security sources say
MAIDUGURI: At least 23 farmers and fishermen were killed and others abducted by suspected Islamist militants in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state this week, security sources and local residents told Reuters.
Nigeria has been grappling with a long-running insurgency in its northeast, primarily driven by the Islamist armed group Boko Haram and its offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province.
The latest attack happened in the village of Malam Karanti on Thursday morning, the security sources and residents said.
A spokesman for Nigeria’s army did not respond to phone calls and text messages seeking comment.
Local resident Sani Auwal said by phone that militants had gathered farmers and fishermen near the village and killed 23 people, many of them bean farmers. They spared an elderly man who later alerted the community, he said.
Another local resident Usman Ali said the community had tried to recover the bodies of those killed but had been chased back by the militants.
Last month Borno’s governor acknowledged that Boko Haram had renewed attacks and kidnappings in the state, reversing previous gains by security forces.
India and US at odds on Kashmir truce with Pakistan — analysts
- Trump announced the truce after four days of missile, drone and artillery attacks from both sides, killing about 70 people
- President Trump’s rhetoric about the ceasefire is ‘irritating’ for India, an important ally for the US, an analyst says
NEW DELHI: US President Donald Trump’s claim to have helped end fighting between arch-rivals India and Pakistan has driven a wedge between him and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, analysts say.
A week since Trump announced a surprise truce between India and Pakistan to end a brief but intense conflict, New Delhi and Washington differ about the way it was achieved.
The US administration thought “an intervention at this stage might give them some basic benefit in terms of highlighting Trump’s role,” Indian foreign policy expert Harsh V. Pant told AFP.
“That... became the driver and in a sense the hurry which with Trump announced the ceasefire,” said Pant from the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation (ORF) think tank.
Fighting began when India launched strikes on May 7 against what it called “terrorist camps” in Pakistan following an April militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people.
New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing the militants it claimed were behind the attack, which Pakistan denies.
Trump announced the truce after four days of missile, drone and artillery attacks from both sides, killing about 70 people, including dozens of civilians, and sent thousands fleeing.
He later boasted about bringing India and Pakistan “back from the brink,” telling Fox News on Friday it was “a bigger success than I’ll ever be given credit for.”
New Delhi however shrugs off these claims, which go against decades-long Indian policy that opposes foreign mediation in conflicts with Islamabad.
India and Pakistan claim the currently divided Kashmir in full. New Delhi considers the Himalayan region an internal matter, with politicians long viewing external mediation as a sign of weakness.
Modi’s first speech since the ceasefire did not mention US involvement and his government has since insisted that talks with Pakistan are “strictly bilateral.”
India was also quick to dismiss Trump’s suggestion that trade pressures hastened a truce.
“The issue of trade did not come up” in discussions with US officials, the Indian foreign ministry said this week.
According to ORF fellow Manoj Joshi, Trump’s rhetoric is “irritating” for India — whose strategic location and massive market size have made the country an important ally for the United States.
But India is being “very cautious” because it is in negotiations for a trade deal with Washington to avoid steep tarriffs, he said.
“We (India) would like the agenda to go in a different direction,” said Joshi.
It is also a thorny matter domestically.
Main opposition Congress party said Trump’s announcement had “upstaged” the Hindu nationalist leader’s “much-delayed address.”
It also demanded an all-party meeting to ask whether India is changing its policy on “third-party mediation” for Kashmir, disputed between Pakistan and India.
The two South Asian rivals had in the 1970s agreed to settle “differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations.”
Modi has previously poked fun at former Congress governments for “weak” responses against Pakistan in various skirmishes.
“So India would obviously respond to that and deny that... about as politely as they feel they can get away with,” said South Asia researcher Pramit Pal Chaudhuri of political consultancy Eurasia Group.
Trump’s claimed mediation was welcomed by Islamabad, which “needed an American intervention to give them the off-ramp they needed to get out of a conflict,” Chaudhuri added.
On Thursday, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar reaffirmed that “where Pakistan is concerned, our relations, our dealings with them will be bilateral, and strictly bilateral.”
But the same day, speaking from Qatar, Trump repeated claims of brokering a ceasefire and using trade as a tool.
“(I said) let’s do trade instead of war. And Pakistan was very happy with that, and India was very happy with that,” Trump said in his speech.
It has been a decade since Modi last met a Pakistani leader. Since then, relations have deteriorated, coming to a head when India unilaterally revoked in 2019 limited autonomy of the part of Kashmir it administers.
According to Joshi, “the hyphenation of India and Pakistan” is also “irritating” for New Delhi, which has tried to carve out a separate identity on the global stage.
“The optics of Trump hammering it day after day... is politically damaging for Modi,” Sushant Singh, a former Indian soldier and South Asian studies lecturer at Yale University, wrote on X.
“[Modi] can’t personally counter Trump, and despite attempts by India’s big media to play it down, social media amplifies Trump,” Singh said.
British police charge three Iranians in counter terrorism probe
British police have charged three Iranian men with offenses under the National Security Act after a major counter-terrorism investigation, the police said on Saturday.
British counter-terrorism police arrested eight men including seven Iranians earlier this month in two separate operations in what the British interior minister called some of the biggest investigations of their kind in recent years.
Mostafa Sepahvand, Farhad Javadi Manesh, and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori were charged with engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service between August 14, 2024, and February 16, 2025, the police said in a statement.
The foreign state to which the charges relate is Iran, they added.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has previously said he was “disturbed” to learn that Iranian citizens had been arrested by British authorities.
The British government has placed Iran on the highest tier of its foreign influence register, requiring Tehran to register everything it does to exert political influence in the UK.
