By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
A total of 16 F-16 fighter jets of the U.S. Air Force will arrive at an air base in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, this weekend, to replace a departing Apache battalion, officials of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) said Thursday.
The F-16s will be deployed there until September, they said.
Last November, the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) announced one of the two Apache battalions here was being relocated to Fort Carson, Colorado, until March, in order to make the unit available for rotational deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan this fall.
The U.S. Air Force initially planned to temporarily deploy A-10 ``tank killer'' jets to replace the departing Apaches but withdrew the plan as requirements for inspections and repairs to the A-10 fleet have increased.
``F-16s will deploy to the Korean Peninsula before the AH-64s depart to ensure there are no gaps in Korean defense. Therefore, the agreement between the ROK and the U.S. to maintain USFK force levels at 28,500 is complied with,'' the CFC said in a news release.