[Xinhua] Political controversy and public opposition are expected to mount in South Korea over the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) to share military intelligence with the United States and Japan.Seoul's defense ministry said Friday that vice defense ministers of the three nations will ink the MoU in their each country on Dec. 29 without a formal ceremony, a move considered to be out of worries about public uproar here in South Korea.
Under the pact, South Korea and Japan will not exchange military intelligence directly, but share intelligence via the United States after consent from both South Korea and Japan.
The pact will be restricted to intelligence on nuclear and missile programs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea ( DPRK), but public anger and political opposition are expected to rise as the Japanese cabinet has yet to repent and acknowledge its past atrocities during its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
Seoul and Tokyo pushed for a bilateral pact to share a broad range of military intelligence on the DPRK in June 2012, but South Korea put the deal on hold at the last minute amid public uproar at home. The then South Korean government pushed the pact through without enough public debate for fear of possible opposition from the public.