By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
The Cabinet approved a plan Tuesday to deploy 320 troops to Afghanistan to protect 100 civilian reconstruction workers. In addition, 40 police officers will be sent to help train the Afghan police.
A motion for the deployment from July 2010 to December 2012 will be submitted to the National Assembly for approval later this week, the Ministry of National Defense said.
The motion will put the official number of troops up to 350, the ministry said in a news release.
The security in Parwan Province, where the Korean contingent will be stationed, is relatively good, said Lt. Gen. Jang Kwang-il, deputy defense minister for policy.
During the Cabinet meeting, President Lee Myung-bak dismissed the public concern about Korean troops' safety in the terrorism-ridden Central Asian nation.
``I think people are too worried about the deployment,'' Lee said. ``The troops being sent to Afghanistan are not for combat but for local reconstruction.''
As for the decision on a two and a half year deployment, Jang said that the longer troop deployment will help the Korean provincial reconstruction team (PRT) provide stable and sustainable civil operations.
Since the troop deployment to Vietnam in the 1960s, South Korea has usually sent its troops abroad under one-year parliamentary motions.
``We've concluded that setting the deployment period at two and a half years in advance will be helpful in ensuring the safety of troops and effectiveness of PRT operations,'' Jang said.
He noted that 10 member states of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are sending their troops to Afghanistan without parliamentary approval.
They are Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Britain, Norway, Portugal, Poland, Bulgaria, Greece and Singapore.
Five other ISAF members, the United States, Spain, France and Romania, are sending troops without renewing deployment motions.
Jang said though U.S. combat troops are scheduled to be pulled out of Afghanistan beginning July 2011 as announced by President Barack Obama, the PRT work is likely to go on for about two to four years, so there is no problem with Korea's deployment until 2012.
The U.S. Bagram Air Base is close to the planned Korean base, so Korean troops can easily receive U.S. support in the event of an emergency, Jang said.
The Korean contingent will be equipped with four helicopters, armored vehicles, a mini-unmanned aerial vehicle, K11 airburst rifles, high-resolution CCTV and thermal imagers, defense ministry officials said.
Deploying portable explosive detectors and robot systems is also under consideration, they said.
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