Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol justifying his martial law order, Bulgaria and Romania joining the Schengen Zone, and two senior White House officials traveling to the Middle East.
‘I Will Fight to the End’
Calls to impeach South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol surged on Thursday after the increasingly unpopular leader issued a defiant speech in an effort to justify last Tuesday’s martial law declaration. Unlike his Saturday address, during which Yoon apologized for issuing the decree, he defended the order on Thursday as necessary to “save the country” from so-called “anti-state” opposition parties that Yoon says sought to use their legislative power to paralyze the National Assembly.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol justifying his martial law order, Bulgaria and Romania joining the Schengen Zone, and two senior White House officials traveling to the Middle East.
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‘I Will Fight to the End’
Calls to impeach South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol surged on Thursday after the increasingly unpopular leader issued a defiant speech in an effort to justify last Tuesday’s martial law declaration. Unlike his Saturday address, during which Yoon apologized for issuing the decree, he defended the order on Thursday as necessary to “save the country” from so-called “anti-state” opposition parties that Yoon says sought to use their legislative power to paralyze the National Assembly.
“They have become a monster that ruins the free democratic constitutional order of South Korea,” Yoon said, pointing to budget disagreements and opposition efforts to impeach his officials. “I had to do something,” he added.
Yoon also alleged, without presenting evidence, that North Korea had hacked South Korea’s election commission last year, casting doubt on the integrity of the country’s April 2024 election, which his party lost in a landslide. The election commission said there were no signs that a North Korean hack had compromised the election system. Yoon also accused the main opposition Democratic Party of being soft on Pyongyang. North Korean state media on Wednesday called Yoon’s actions “insane” and reminiscent of Seoul’s 1980 military coup.
Lawmakers on all sides have increased their pressure on Yoon to step aside. On Thursday, six opposition parties submitted a bill to parliament calling for Yoon’s impeachment. A vote is expected on Saturday, one week after the first impeachment motion failed due to all but one member of Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP) walking out of the assembly session. If the vote succeeds, then the Constitutional Court has up to six months to decide whether or not to remove Yoon from office.
At least seven PPP members have said they will support the second impeachment vote, including party leader Han Dong-hoon. “We tried to find a better way than impeachment, but that other way is invalid,” Han said, referring to his party’s efforts to force Yoon to resign by March 2025. “Suspending the president from his duties through impeachment is the only way, for now, to defend democracy and the republic,” Han added. The opposition needs just two more PPP deserters to pass the motion.
At the same time, police are investigating possible insurrection charges against Yoon. The crime of insurrection carries the death penalty or life imprisonment for those who are considered ringleaders. Authorities have barred Yoon from leaving the country as the investigation progresses, and police tried to raid his office on Wednesday but were stopped by Yoon’s security forces.
Yoon vowed in his Thursday speech to combat party efforts to oust him. “I will proudly confront it, whether it’s impeachment or investigation,” he said. “I will fight to the end.” Yoon argued that the martial law order was a legitimate exercise of his constitutional powers and did not amount to insurrection.
He also claimed that he had not intended to stop lawmakers from voting against the martial law decree, contradicting testimony by Lt. Gen. Kwak Jong-geun, the commander of the special forces sent to the National Assembly on the night of Yoon’s martial law declaration. Kwak said that Yoon personally ordered him to “break the door down right now, get in there, and drag out the people inside.”
Already, Yoon’s defense minister, Kim Yong-hyun, has resigned and is under investigation for his role in the martial law order. On Thursday, the National Assembly voted to impeach Justice Minister Park Sung-jae and National Police Agency chief Cho Ji-ho for their alleged involvement.
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What We’re Following
No ID necessary. European interior ministers voted on Thursday to formally admit Bulgaria and Romania into the Schengen Zone starting on Jan. 1, 2025. The area, now encompassing 29 countries, has abolished internal border controls for all members except in the cases of specific threats. This means that one can now drive from Portugal to Estonia to Greece without ever having to show a passport.
Thursday’s vote was a “historic decision” that completes “a major objective of both the Republic of Bulgaria and Romania since their accession to the European Union” 17 years ago, the two nations’ foreign ministries said in a joint statement.
Their admission ends a yearslong bid that faced several hurdles due to immigration concerns, specifically from Austria. In March, the European Union lifted border checks via air and sea travel for Bulgaria and Romania, but Vienna remained opposed to their full admission, accusing the two nations of not doing enough to curb undocumented migration. Sofia’s decision last month to deploy more troops to its border with Turkey, though, appeared to pave the way for Austria to reconsider.
Shuttle diplomacy. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan are traveling in the Middle East this week to address changing dynamics in the region, from the sudden ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to ongoing cease-fire negotiations in Gaza. Blinken began his tour in Jordan on Wednesday before heading to Turkey on Thursday, and Sullivan started in Israel and will eventually visit Egypt and Qatar.
As U.S. President Joe Biden prepares to leave office in January, these trips will likely be one of the administration’s last diplomatic efforts to ease tensions in the Middle East and avoid the complications of a power vacuum in Damascus.
Blinken met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday to press Syria’s neighbors to ensure a smooth transition that creates what Blinken called an “accountable and representative” new government. Meanwhile, Sullivan met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to push for truce and hostage release talks with Hamas in Gaza. Israel’s recent cease-fire deal with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and its intensifying hostilities with Iran are also on both officials’ agendas.
Get-out-of-jail card. Biden commuted the sentences of roughly 1,500 people on Thursday and pardoned 39 others convicted of nonviolent crimes in the largest single-day act of clemency in modern U.S. history. The commutations were for U.S. citizens who were released from prison and have since served at least one year of home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances,” Biden said, adding that he will continue to review clemency petitions in the coming weeks.
The announcement follows Biden’s controversial decision this month to issue a broad pardon for his son, Hunter, who was facing sentencing for federal gun and tax crimes that could have resulted in up to 25 years in prison. Biden had previously vowed not to use his presidential powers to benefit his family but changed his mind after Donald Trump won the November presidential election.
“The charges in [Hunter’s] cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden said at the time.
Odds and Ends
One of the United Kingdom’s spy agencies is wishing aspiring detectives and Sherlock Holmes lovers a Happy Christmas with its puzzling holiday card. On Wednesday, the Government Communications Headquarters published its annual seasonal greetings Christmas Challenge with a set of seven brain teasers. Young people ages 11 to 18 are encouraged to work in teams and use “lateral thinking, ingenuity, and perseverance” to crack the codes.
The post Yoon Vows to Fight Impeachment, Insurrection Probes appeared first on Foreign Policy.
