A senior US official said Friday that Washington expects Seoul to "uphold" the standards of their decadeslong alliance, amid heightened concerns over apparent friction in the countries' intelligence cooperation.
"We expect the ROK to uphold the standards of our decadeslong alliance, in particular concerning matters of intelligence and counterintelligence," the senior US administration official told Yonhap News Agency in a written statement, referring to South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.
The statement was provided in response to an inquiry from Yonhap News Agency regarding the state of bilateral intelligence cooperation.
The remarks follow growing speculation over bilateral friction after South Korea's National Intelligence Service acknowledged it was excluded from a June trilateral meeting, also involving Japan, on North Korean cyber threats. Local media reports indicated the agency was left out at Washington's request.
South Korea and the United States have faced signs of friction in the intelligence field after Seoul Unification Minister Chung Dong-young's public disclosure of a North Korean uranium enrichment facility in Kusong, North Korea in March.
While Chung has said he only shared what was already in the public domain, the move appears to have prompted Washington to restrict Seoul's access to some intelligence related to North Korea in apparent protest over the disclosure.
The strain in bilateral relations was also apparent in a delayed issuance of a US visa for Rep. Jung Chung-rae, former leader of South Korea's ruling Democratic Party. Jung had planned to visit the United States for a parliamentary audit of Seoul's diplomatic missions.
Jung addressed the issue in a Facebook post, noting that his US visa is under review and asking others to refrain from remarks that could harm the South Korea-US alliance. (Yonhap)