By Jung Sung-ki
Staff reporter
South Korea and the United States will establish a new roadmap to outline a broader alliance by the year’s end in tandem with a changing security environment around the Korean Peninsula, the Ministry of National Defense said Thursday.
The new plan, “Strategic Alliance 2015,” will be a top topic for a meeting of defense ministers from the two governments in October in Washington, D.C., deputy minister for policy Jang Kwang-il said.
The plan will include measures regarding the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) in 2015, new operational plans by the South Korean and U.S. militaries, as well as the relocation of U.S. bases to south of the Han River by 2015 to 2016, Jang said.
“The new plan will include various issues to be improved and readjusted in the six-decade-old ROK-U.S. alliance,” he told reporters. “Following a recent decision to delay the OPCON transfer to 2015, there is a need to modify alliance issues and their timelines.”
Last month, President Lee Myung-bak and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama agreed to postpone the OPCON transition from April 2012 to December 2015, amid growing calls to strengthen the ROK-U.S. combined defense posture against North Korean provocations.
The agreement followed the deadly sinking of one of South Korea’s warships in the West Sea on March 26 that resulted in the loss of 46 sailors. A Seoul-led multinational investigation team determined in May that a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine had sunk the frigate Cheonan. North Korea denies the accusation.
The ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command is to be deactivated when the United States hands over wartime command to South Korea. At that time the two sides will run separate theater commands with South Korea leading major combat operations on the peninsula.
The U.S. military will provide naval and air-centric support.
About 28,000 U.S. troops are currently stationed here.