On Thursday, South Korea's Defense Minister, Kim Tae-young, submitted his resignation after receiving hefty criticism for the South’s response to the North’s artillery strike earlier in the week, The New York Times reports.
From the Times:
From the Times:
"There was a need to revamp the military landscape," a senior government official said Thursday night. "It was time."
The government official said Mr. Kim offered his resignation on May 1, after a South Korean Navy vessel, the Cheonan, was sunk off the coast of North Korea in the Yellow Sea. [President Lee Myung-bak] deferred the resignation and asked Mr. Kim to stay on. It was expected that his replacement would be named on Friday.
Earlier Thursday, the government said it would bolster its island defenses in the Yellow Sea and make its rules of engagement more muscular. Mr. Lee held a security meeting Thursday morning at the Blue House, the presidential compound in Seoul, where the new strategies were drafted.
Seoul also said it would press China to use its considerable diplomatic leverage with the North to avoid an escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula.
