South Korea in September 2026: the most important developments in politics
South Korea's politics in September 2026 centred on the Strait of Hormuz, relations with North Korea and a fall in President Lee Jae-myung's approval.
On 7 September Iran warned South Korea of consequences over a possible deployment to the Strait of Hormuz. On 8 September Seoul sent a team to assess conditions in the strait, and on 9 September Lee and French President Emmanuel Macron, during Lee's state visit to France, agreed to cooperate on free navigation there. The foreign ministers of South Korea and Iran held a phone call on the issue. On 18 September Lee rejected pressure from President Trump and said he would not send troops to Iran. On 24 September South Korea and 79 other countries called at the United Nations for the immediate reopening of the strait.
On North Korea, South Korea's intelligence agency saw a possible summit between Trump and Kim Jong-un at the start of the month and, on 30 September, put the chance of US-North Korea talks around the APEC summit at 50 percent. Lee said talks between Pyongyang and Washington would be easier to arrange than inter-Korean dialogue and, at the UN General Assembly in New York, urged the United States to ease sanctions in exchange for a freeze of North Korea's nuclear programmes. A Seoul court ordered North Korea to pay 44.6 billion won for blowing up the inter-Korean liaison office in 2020. On 30 September North Korea denied responsibility for landmine blasts in the Demilitarized Zone that injured three people, which Seoul had attributed to it, and threatened retaliation. Ukraine transferred two captured North Korean soldiers to South Korea; Lee said Kyiv had breached a non-disclosure agreement by disclosing it, and on 28 September Seoul summoned Ukraine's envoy and demanded an apology.
South Korea held its first summit with five Central Asian countries in Seoul on 16 September and adopted the Seoul Declaration. Gallup Korea put Lee's approval at 38 percent, a new low, on 11 September, and Lee issued an apology on 18 September. His spokesman said on 10 September that he rules out extending his term.
by WorldBrief & Maksim Micheliov | AI-generated summary
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