By Lee Tae-hoon
Seoul is negotiating with Washington for a removal of weight restrictions on its unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as it pushes ahead with the revision of a bilateral missile agreement, a government official said Monday.
Under the bilateral pact signed in 2001 with the United States, Korea is restricted to developing missiles and drones with a payload of less than 500 kilograms. Seoul is also mandated to file reports on the progress of its UAV development and test flights to Washington.
The official said Seoul recently expressed its desire to increase the limit on UAVs’ payload to 3,000 pounds (1,361 kilograms) during a consultative meeting with the U.S.
“We believe Korea should be able to develop its own drones capable of carrying an internal payload of up to 3,000 pounds, which is equivalent to the payload weight of the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk,” he said asking not to be named.
The RQ-4B Block 20 can carry a payload of 3,000 pounds.
Another official pointed out that Washington will eventually agree to ease restrictions on the payload weight as it pushes to sell high-altitude aerial vehicles.
Washington has long pressured Seoul to purchase the Global Hawk as it plans to pull out or decommission a set of intelligence and surveillance assets around 2015 when wartime military operational control is transferred from the United States to South Korea.
The Ministry of National Defense, however, refused to comment, citing the sensitivity of the issue.
A senior official of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said that the revision of the existing rules will not significantly alter the agency’s plan to develop UAVs.
Seoul is currently developing a medium-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (MUAV) with the capability of carrying a payload of 500 kilograms including, electronic, optical and infrared imaging and data equipment.
The domestically-produced MUAV is designed to carry out missions as high as 15 kilometers and is known to have similar specifications to the MQ-1 Predator medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV of the U.S. Air Force.
The South Korean military is believed to operate only a low-altitude UAV at an altitude of up to 3 kilometers.
The Global Hawk is capable of observing and photographing terrestrial facilities and movements of the whole North Korean region, as well as parts of China while flying at an altitude of 18 kilometers or higher.