The News
South Korean police were forced to abandon an attempt to arrest impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday after a six-hour standoff with his security guards and supporters.
The 150 police officers involved were dramatically outnumbered, first by backers of Yoon who had gathered outside the former president’s residence and then by a “human wall” of security inside the building, the BBC reported. Law enforcement officials said that Yoon’s “refusal of the legal process” is “deeply regrettable,” and next steps will be decided after a review.
Yoon had already ignored three police summonses as part of an investigation into his brief declaration of martial law in December. Since then, South Korea has been in political freefall: Yoon and his acting successor were both impeached, and the country’s reputation as a stable democracy in East Asia has been damaged.
SIGNALS
Failed arrest attempt raises questions about South Korean leadership
South Korean politics is in “uncharted territory” the BBC wrote. It’s the first time that a sitting president has faced arrest, and police officers’ failure to do so “raises serious and uncomfortable questions about who’s in charge here.” Some analysts argued that Yoon anticipated his current situation and prepared for it: The president had appointed several allies into positions of power, including the head of the presidential security service who joined in September. Acting President Choi Sang-mok could now order the presidential security service to step down. But a failure to do so will likely lead to his impeachment as well, one Korea expert told the BBC.
Seoul tries to maintain diplomatic ties
Choi emphasized South Korea’s unwavering commitment to long-time ally the US on Friday. He also reiterated Seoul’s interest in strengthening ties with Japan: An improvement in this long-strained relationship in recent months was seen as a top foreign policy success for both the Yoon and the Biden administrations. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is likely to visit Seoul next week, a diplomatic source told Yonhap News Agency, and the deepening ties between North Korea and Russia will be high on the agenda. Concerns have grown that South Korea’s domestic turmoil “could undermine Seoul’s policy coordination with Washington” on issues such as the threat from Pyongyang, the agency wrote.