President Lee Jae-myung ruled out dispatching South Korean forces to the Strait of Hormuz if their mission involved joining or intervening in a war, while maintaining that Seoul must protect merchant shipping, crude-oil routes and citizens. At his seventh press conference since taking office, Lee also said he had no intention of seeking re-election, drawing a line under discussion of a constitutional amendment permitting re-election. Lee renewed his call for a special counsel investigation into cases involving suspected malicious investigations and manipulation, saying the truth should be established through such a probe. He asked the National Assembly to remove a provision allowing the special counsel to dismiss charges, while indicating that procedures for dropping charges should proceed if the investigation proves prosecutions were manipulated. The president apologized after his approval rating fell into the 30% range following the June local elections but defended the government’s real-estate policy, describing an end to South Korea’s entrenched dependence on property as a central task. He also questioned how single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds were approved, said stock prices cannot be predicted, and accepted responsibility for divisions within the Democratic Party.