Cooperation Including Joint Situation Analysis Reports
South Korea and the United States are strengthening cooperation in diplomatic intelligence collection and analysis.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 25th, Park Jang-ho, Director General of the Diplomatic Intelligence Planning Bureau at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Brett Holmgren, U.S. Department of State Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research, signed the "Korea-U.S. Diplomatic Intelligence Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)" yesterday in Washington, D.C., USA. A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official expressed hope that "as an important institutional foundation for the operation of the Diplomatic Strategic Intelligence Headquarters, it will make a groundbreaking contribution to establishing a broader and faster information-sharing system between Korea and the U.S."
Seoul Museum of History Special Exhibition Commemorating the 70th Anniversary of the Korea-US Alliance [Image Source=Yonhap News]
The MOU was concluded between the Diplomatic Intelligence Planning Bureau of the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the U.S. Department of State. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained that the Korean and U.S. diplomatic authorities have shared the need to institutionalize exchanges and cooperation in diplomatic intelligence to strengthen the "intelligence alliance," and have been conducting working-level consultations since early this year to achieve this.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs evaluated that through this MOU, Korea and the U.S. will exchange diplomatic intelligence analysis and technology regarding various regional and international situations, promote capacity-building cooperation, and establish an institutional foundation for concrete and practical cooperation such as the joint preparation of situation analysis reports.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs established the Diplomatic Strategic Intelligence Headquarters last month through organizational restructuring. This added an intelligence analysis organization to the existing Korean Peninsula Peace Negotiation Headquarters, which was responsible for North Korean nuclear negotiations. It comprises four bureaus: the Diplomatic Strategic Planning Bureau, Diplomatic Intelligence Planning Bureau, Korean Peninsula Policy Bureau, and International Security Bureau.
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