By Lee Tae-hoon
The defense chiefs of South Korea and the United States made contradictory statements about an unsettled bilateral issue, after emerging from a two-plus-two meeting in Washington, Thursday.
Talking about Seoul’s wish to gain understanding from Washington about wishing to increase the strike range of its missiles, U.S. Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta stated:“I think we are making good progress, and our hope is that we can arrive at an agreeable solution soon.”
However, Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said the missile range issue was, “not raised on the agenda. It was not raised in today's talks.”
Currently, Seoul is banned from developing or possessing ballistic missiles with a range of more than 300 kilometers and a payload of over 500 kilograms under an agreement with Washington based on the global Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).
The bilateral talks drew together Panetta, Kim, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan.
Korean military officials say the different statements from the two defense chiefs could be attributed to a difference the U.S. Defense Department has with the State Department on the issue.
“I think Panetta might have blurted out the Pentagon’s position that wants to let Seoul have its way,” a senior military official said on condition of anonymity.
South Korea’s military has been calling for an extension of the missile’s range in order to cover all North Korean territory, possibly up to 1,000 kilometers, and reduce the missile gap between the two states, which still technically remain at war.
He pointed out that the State Department’s position differs with Panetta’s view. The department is a staunch propagator of nonproliferation and is concerned that Washington’s approval for the revision could be seen as a violation of the MTCR and start a domino effect.
They say the international community might interpret Seoul’s development of long-range missiles as breaching the MTCR that the United States and the six remaining G7 countries established in 1987 to restrict the export of long-range missiles.
Currently, 34 countries are members of the MTCR, including Russia, Canada, Brazil and Germany. Seoul joined the multilateral export control regime in 2001.
In March, President Lee Myung-bak expressed optimism over the revision of a bilateral ballistic missile agreement with the United States, but President Barack Obama refuted the claim.
Obama said in a joint press conference with Lee in Seoul that it was a technical issue dealt with at a military level, not presidential level when asked about Seoul’s push to extend the range of its ballistic missiles.
Washington has been reluctant to give a green light to the extended missile range as it fears other countries, including potential rivals, will follow suit and develop longer-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear warheads.
