By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
South Korea and the United States have agreed to change the names of large-scale joint military exercises in line with the planned transition of wartime operational control, officials at the Ministry of National Defense said Monday.
The RSOI (Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, Integration) command post exercise in the spring will be called ``Key Resolve (KR)’’ exercise, while the Ulchi Focus Lens (UFL) exercise in the late summer will be called ``Ulchi-Freedom Guardian (UFG),’’ they said.
The agreement was made during a meeting between Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Kim Kwan-jin and Gen. B. B. Bell, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea and the Combined Forces Command (CFC) in mid-June, they said.
The names of Foal Eagle and Ulchi exercises, which are held simulatenously with the RSOI and UFL exercises, respectively, will remain intact.
``The two sides shared the view that the names should be changed in accordance with the new military structure under which South Korea will lead any training exercises with operational control of Korean and American armed forces during wartime,’’ a ministry official said, asking not to be named.
He said the names will be used from next year to early 2012, when South Korea is to take over the authority to command and control its forces during wartime.
The South Korean and U.S. militaries have conducted the RSOI/FE exercises, large-scale joint drills, every March since 1994, when Soutb Korea retrieved peacetime control of its troops from the U.S. military.
RSOI is a simulation-driven, defense-oriented combined command-post exercise to evaluate the allied forces’ capability to receive forces from bases outside of the country in the case of an emergency on the Korean Peninsula.
FE is a joint and combined field training exercise focused on rear area security and stability operations, movement of equipment and war training events.
UFL is the CFC’s annual war-fighting command post exercise that began in 1994. The training is designed to exercise, evaluate and improve crisis action measures and procedures for the combined war plans in the defense of South Korea in accordance with joint war scenarios.