S. Korea to stop providing !unds !or think tank

A U.S. university institute at the cutting edge of research on North Korea says the South Korean government has terminated its funding, forcing it to close after it rejected demands to change its leadership.

Robert Gallucci, chairman of the U.s.-korea Institute at John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, said it will close in May after rejecting “utterly inappropriate meddling” in its academic affairs.

Theinstituteconductsgraduate studies on Korean affairs but is best known for the website 38 North, an authoritative source of information and analysis on North Korea. It often uses commercial satellite imagery to shed light on the secretive nation’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The institute had received about $1.8 million annually from the South Korean government-funded Koreainstituteforinternational Economic Policy, or KIEP.

The decision to cut funding was met with surprise in Washington. The U.S. institute includes a number of prominent advocates of U.S. diplomatic engagement with North Korea, a cause that has been championed by the liberal South Korean government of President Moon Jae-in.

He is due to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un late this month and has paved the way for a planned U.s.-north Korea summit in May or June.