By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter

South Korea has no plan to participate in the U.S.-led global ballistic missile defense (BMD) network, an official at the Ministry of National Defense said Tuesday.

The remark came in a response to a local news report that the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama may ask South Korea to join the missile shield initiative despite its recent modification of the BMD plan.

In a major policy reversal, the U.S. government announced that it would scuttle plans to build a massive ground-based missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland that the previous Bush administration intended to use to counter the threat posed by Iranian ballistic missiles.

Instead, Obama favors shorter-range ground- and sea-based missiles positioned closer to Iran, similar to the systems being put in place in South Korea against North Korea's missile threat.

The report cited a report written by the Missile Defense Agency affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense, describing South Korea as one of the nations to potentially join the BMD effort.

The report categorized South Korea, Bahrain, France, Germany, India, Qatar and some other nations as the ``nations expressing interest in missile defense.''

Pundits say the categorization could be construed as a sign of a U.S. future request that South Korea take part in the missile defense plan.

``There has been no change in our position not to participate in the U.S. BMD network since the previous Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations,'' the official said, asking not to be named.

The Obama administration has made no request on the issue to the Seoul government, and there has not been any bilateral consultation on that matter, he noted.

Washington has long sought Seoul's participation in its BMD initiative, but the previous liberal governments here were negative about the issue, citing financial constraints and anti-U.S. public sentiment.

The atmosphere apparently changed since the inauguration of President Lee Myung-bak in February last year as the conservative government puts a priority on developing the Seoul-Washington alliance into a strategic partnership that looks beyond the Korean Peninsula.

Sources say the Lee government wants to cooperate with the U.S. BMD plan, short of fully joining the system, to improve interoperability with the U.S. military after 2012, when South Korea takes over operational control of its forces during wartime from the United States.

Currently, South Korea is on track to build an independent theater missile shield that can intercept short- and intermediate-range missiles from North Korea. The low-tier missile shield, aimed at intercepting targets about 40 kilometers north of Seoul, will include refurbished PAC-3 interceptors from Germany and reach initial operational capability by 2010.

Full operational capability is expected by 2012, when two sets of missile early-warning radar systems and three 7,600-ton KDX-III Aegis-equipped destroyers will be in service. South Korea's Navy has commissioned two Sejong the Great-class destroyers armed with the Aegis air warfare defense system built by Lockheed Martin and plans to set afloat one more ship by 2012.

Aegis destroyers are armed with Raytheon's tactical SM-2 Block IIIA/B ship-to-air missiles. The Navy also is eyeing the state-of-the-art SM-6 extended-range missile being developed by Raytheon and the U.S. Navy.

Last week, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration announced a plan to purchase Israel's Super Green Pine ballistic missile early warning radars with a detection range of more than 500 kilometers.

gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr