South Korea's incoming president promises to take a hard line on North Korea’s military escalations.
Kim Jong-un is testing North Korea's weapons with renewed urgency, as South Korea prepares to inaugurate a new, hard-line president. After years of stalemate, following failed nuclear talks, tensions on the Korean peninsula are rising.
Then something remarkable happened. South Korea's newly-elected president at the time, Moon Jae-in, convinced Mr Trump to meet Kim Jong-un. It was the first time a sitting US president had ever met the leader of North Korea. A flurry of historic summits followed, sparking hope that the North might just agree to give up its nuclear weapons, and the two Koreas would make peace.
President Moon tried everything he could to coax the North Koreans back to talks, but in doing so he has been accused of appeasing one of the world's most brutal dictators."When I saw those pictures of them with their arms around each other laughing, it sent shivers down my back," remembers Hanna Song, from her office in downtown Seoul.
But the hugs and handshakes are over. South Korea has elected a new, tough-talking President, a former prosecutor with no prior political experience. In a recent interview Yoon Suk-yeol described North Korea as the "main enemy" of the South and has promised to take a hard-line approach to its military escalations.