SOUTH KOREA PERSPECTIVE

173 sailors stranded on 26 vessels — Seoul is quietly negotiating with Tehran.

South Korean coverage is the most operational in the panel. No grand geopolitics: stranded ships, endangered crews, and a government improvising in real time. Yonhap reveals that special envoy Chung Byung-ha shared information about stranded Korean vessels directly with Iranian officials in Tehran. This marks a quiet but significant shift: until now, Seoul had refused any bilateral negotiation with Iran to secure passage.

In parallel, Foreign Minister Cho Hyun announces that envoys have been dispatched to Algeria and Libya, with another planned for the Republic of Congo, to secure alternative supply routes. The presidential chief of staff has been sent to the Middle East as a special envoy. Meanwhile, oil-producing countries are showing interest in South Korea's petroleum storage facilities — a reversal that could transform an importing nation into a potential logistics hub.

The Korea Times adds a strategic layer with an article on post-war NATO: the US is criticizing Europeans for refusing to authorize overflights from American bases in Europe. The piece notes that the Hormuz blockade could jeopardize the upcoming Trump-Xi summit — forcing Beijing to choose between defending Iran and preserving its relationship with Washington. Seoul reads the world through its vulnerabilities, and this candid fragility is what makes its coverage so precise.