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![]() by Staff Writers Seoul (AFP) Jan 21, 2020
South Korea will send a naval destroyer and 300 troops to the Strait of Hormuz, its defence ministry said Tuesday, after pressure from its ally the US in the face of tensions between Washington and Tehran. Iran has been blamed for a series of attacks on shipping vessels in the strait, a strategic choke point for the world's oil trade where the US has deployed a naval mission. But the request put Seoul in a dilemma: it has had diplomatic relations with Tehran since the early 1960s and until last year Iran was one of the resource-poor South's key oil suppliers. The defence ministry said in a statement that Seoul had decided to "temporarily expand" the deployment area of its anti-piracy military unit operating off the coast of Somalia to include the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, which are linked by the Strait of Hormuz. It would not be part of the US naval mission, it insisted -- although two liaison officers would be sent to the US headquarters for "information sharing". Seoul and Washington are in a security alliance but their relations have been strained by the Trump administration's demands the South pay billions of dollars more towards the costs of 28,500 US troops stationed in the country to protect it from the nuclear-armed North. US Ambassador Harry Harris last week urged Seoul to join in the naval mission, saying "very few countries have a greater need" to take part as the South "gets 70 percent of its oil supplies from the Middle East". Trump abandoned the landmark 2015 deal curtailing Tehran's nuclear programme and imposed economic sanctions against Iran, prompting South Korean exports to the country to fall nearly 90 percent last year.
![]() ![]() EU ministers debate more 'forceful' Libya role Brussels (AFP) Jan 20, 2020 European foreign ministers discussed Monday how to wield influence "more forcefully" in Libya and restore an arms embargo against the country's warring parties. The EU meeting in Brussels came a day after Germany hosted a summit to push for a ceasefire in the civil war, boosting calls for the relaunch of Europe's naval mission "Operation Sophia". Before the meeting there had also been talk of a European military mission to monitor any ceasefire. But ministers were cautious on this. EU foreig ... read more
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