North Korea's Kim Jong-un may carry out a nuclear or missile test to bolster his leadership at home and abroad, a former chief of U.S. Forces Korea said Thursday, calling on Seoul to beef up its missile defense system to counter growing threats from the belligerent North.
"(Kim) has made clear that he will continue to develop nuclear weapons capabilities and increase even more, and continue to develop ballistic missiles," Walter Sharp said at an interview with Yonhap News Agency during his visit to Seoul at the invitation of the Korea Retired Generals and Admirals Association. "If you look at history, especially in the last four or five years, the indication would be that there's probably more coming."
Sharp, who served as the Combined Forces Command chief from 2008-2011, urged the young leader to take a different path from his father, Kim Jong-il, to become a member of the international community, saying the communist state has not made substantive changes despite signs of economic reforms to develop the moribund economy and raise living standards.
The retired general, who now consults for several think tanks in Washington D.C., said the need to strengthen Seoul's missile capability took on new urgency after Pyongyang's latest long-range rocket launch in April, though it failed.
"He (Kim) has continued to advocate the military first policy. Considering the rhetoric that has come out from North Korea, military threats have been very strong since he's been the leader of North Korea," the 60-year-old said. "I think South Korea is moving in the right direction of increasing missile capability. I think it should be continued and be increased even more.
Following the North's rocket launch, Seoul's defense ministry has revised a mid-term budget plan to spend 2.7 trillion won (US$2.3 billion) on buying hundreds of home-built ballistic missiles and other weapons in the next five years to target North Korea's nuclear weapons facilities and missile bases.
The U.S. stations 28,500 troops in South Korea, and guarantees a nuclear "umbrella" in case of any atomic attack. In return, Seoul maintains a 300-kilometer and 500-kilogram limit on its missile capabilities under a guideline.
With growing consensus to expand the range, talks have been underway between Seoul and Washington to increase the missile range and payload.
When asked how the missile guideline should be revised, Sharp refused to go into detail, saying "a holistic perspective" approach should be taken considering South Korea's military, diplomatic and economic relations with other countries.
Regarding conservative groups' call for the delay of Seoul's plan to retake wartime operational control of its troops in 2015, Sharp said the issue should be discussed by the next government of the two nations to make it less swayed by politics.
"I know there are many groups that are calling for this (operational control transition) not to happen in 2015," Sharp said. "My thought is that this ought to be a point of discussion very early in the next president of Korea and the next United States president's term of office."
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's single five-year term ends in February next year, while U.S. President Barack Obama is running in the November race for another four years in office.
Under a 2007 deal, Seoul had been scheduled to take over wartime control of its armed forces from Washington in 2012, but the two sides agreed to delay the transfer by three years after the North's sinking of a South Korean warship in March 2010.
The U.S. has held wartime command of South Korean troops since the beginning of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. Seoul regained peacetime control of its military in 1994.
"Very often, it has been politicized. I think it's not the right way," he said. "I think discussing it in the early term will not make it political because it will be far away from an election."
Sharp tried to dispel worries among South Koreans that the U.S. will "abandon" Korea upon the transition of the wartime operational control, saying U.S. troops will continue to fulfill the obligation to maintain peace in the region.
"It is staying in the foreseeable future. The thought that the U.S. will leave without transition: the thought is wrong," he said. "I'm very confident that the U.S. will live up to those obligations, now or in the future, regardless of the situation."
Touching on the U.S.'s growing emphasis on the Asia-Pacific region, he expressed concern over the growing territorial disputes that could dampen military, diplomatic and economic relations between the major Asian nations, including Japan and China.
"The U.S. has been very clear on the fact that territorial issues need to be resolved without gunfire," he said. "They need to be resolved peacefully by people coming to the table and working together diplomatically." (Yonhap)
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