Seoul, South Korea – Massive protests took place in Seoul on Wednesday, organized outside the U.S. Embassy complex and in the vicinity of the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. Demonstrators held up banners and chanted slogans vehemently condemning any potential military involvement by their country in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. They also demanded that the government resist pressures to drag Korean forces into the fray of regional tensions.
The Popular Movement and the Government’s Hesitant Stance
These angry popular protests erupted just one day after defense authorities in Seoul announced plans to dispatch an official mission to assess the situation on the ground in the Strait of Hormuz. This coincided with an official confirmation that no final decision regarding the deployment of military forces had yet been made. The government clarified that any move to participate would be strictly conditional on not compromising the nation’s defense readiness. Nevertheless, this assurance failed to quell the anger of the public and civil society organizations, which fear serious repercussions for national security.
Iranian warnings and concerns over violations of international law
In response, these moves met with stern and direct warnings from Iran; Tehran asserted that any decision to deploy South Korean forces to the Strait of Hormuz would be viewed as “direct support for aggression” and warned that such a move would have grave consequences for bilateral relations. Activists echoed these concerns; Jung Kyung-jik, a representative of the civic group “People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy,” told AFP that the deployment would amount to direct participation in an illegal war that violates international law. He pointed to repeated US attacks targeting energy infrastructure and an elementary school.
Demonstrators gathered on the steps, raising their voices in resounding chants warning of the fate awaiting South Korean youth—most notably, “We cannot send our young people into a sea of death.” Protests are also expected to intensify in the coming days.
