Korea to 'consult' with U.S. over CIA spying report over Ukrainian arms supply

Korea’s presidential office said Sunday it will hold “necessary consultations” with the United States after a report claimed the CIA had been spying on the South Korean government’s deliberations on whether to provide military aid to support Ukraine.

Ukrainian servicemen stand in a trench near their position near the town of Bakhmut, Donetsk region in Ukraine on Saturday, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [AFP/YONHAP]

Korea's presidential office said Sunday it will hold "necessary consultations" with the United States after a report claimed the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been spying on the South Korean government's deliberations on whether to provide military aid to support Ukraine in the war with Russia.

The New York Times reported Saturday that leaked classified U.S. intelligence documents shared on social media revealed that the United States was not spying just on Russia, but also on its allies including South Korea and Israel.

It reported that at least two discussions in the documents posted online included "South Korea's internal debates about whether to give the U.S. artillery shells for use in Ukraine, violating Seoul's policy on providing lethal aid."

One section mentioned that South Korean officials were worried that U.S. President Joe Biden "would call South Korea's president pressuring Seoul to deliver the goods."

Another section of the CIA documents noted that information was obtained from "a signals intelligence report," referring to a term spy agencies use for any kind of intercepted communications ranging from phone calls to electronic messages.

"We will come up with a response after reviewing past precedents and cases in other countries," a presidential official told reporters Sunday, and "hold necessary consultations with the United States on the issues raised" in the report.

When asked if there had been discussions about providing weapons to Ukraine as reported, the official replied that "nothing has been confirmed."

"There is no change to our government's basic stance on Ukraine," said the official, indicating South Korea maintains its position that it will focus on providing humanitarian aid, rather than lethal weapons.

The presidential office reportedly held a meeting presided by new National Security Adviser Cho Tae-yong Sunday morning to discuss the report.

The news comes ahead of President Yoon Suk Yeol's state visit to the United States later this month.

Last month, Lee Moon-hee, presidential secretary for foreign affairs, suddenly was replaced by Lee Choong-myon, head of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security.

On March 29, Kim Sung-han abruptly stepped down as national security adviser and was replaced by Cho. Such reshuffling of key security and foreign affairs officials ahead of major presidential overseas trips is unusual.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that when Seoul agreed to sell artillery shells to help Washington replenish its stockpiles late last year, it insisted that their "end user" should be the U.S. military, but that top Korean presidential aides were worried that the United States would divert them to Ukraine.

Lee, then presidential secretary for foreign affairs, told his boss, former National Security Adviser Kim, that the South Korean government "was mired in concerns that the U.S. would not be the end user if South Korea were to comply with a U.S. request for ammunition," according to leaked Pentagon documents.

The report described that the documents showed that South Korea was torn as a key American ally between Washington's pressure to help supply ammunition to Ukraine and its official policy of not providing lethal weapons to countries at war.

Lee "stressed that South Korea was not prepared to have a call between the heads of state without having a clear position on the issue," as South Korea could not violate its own policy against supplying lethal aid, "so officially changing the policy would be the only option," the document reportedly read, showing Seoul's concern that Biden would call Yoon directly to put pressure on Korea.

Lee said that Im Ki-hun, presidential secretary for national defense, had promised to come up with a final stance by March 2. But Kim had been worried that if the announcement of Yoon's state visit to Washington coincided with an announcement of Seoul's change in its stance on providing lethal aid to Ukraine, "the public would think the two had been done as a trade," according to the report.

Kim instead suggested selling 330,000 rounds of 155-millimeter artillery shells to Poland, according to the document, and Lee agreed that it might be possibility, but said that Korea would need to "verify what Poland would do" with the ammunition.

Yoon's state visit to the United States for a bilateral summit with Biden on April 26 was announced on March 7.

There have been other cases of the United States wiretapping South Korea in the past.

In 2013, documents leaked by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the United States had been wiretapping 38 embassies and missions to collect sensitive internal information from countries including South Korea.

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]