Korea, US reaffirm 2015 deadline for wartime operational control transition

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The military chiefs of Korea and the United States reaffirmed Tuesday the timeline for Washington's 2015 transfer to Seoul of wartime operational control of Korean troops, and to bolster their joint defense posture even after the transition.

The agreement came at the annual Military Committee Meeting between South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Jung Seung-jo and his U.S. counterpart, Gen. Martin Dempsey, to coordinate policy on North Korea and alliance issues, the JCS said in a statement.

The JCS chiefs' meeting, which was held via a video conference link, took place on the eve of Wednesday's annual security talks between the defense ministers of the two countries.

In a joint communique, the two sides agreed on the need to "further strengthen the alliance's capabilities and commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea, particularly in a time of new and emerging challenges on the Korean Peninsula and in the region."

To this end, the sides "reiterated their commitment to further strengthen the alliance's deterrent capabilities and discussed issues pertaining to the stable transition of wartime operational control (OPCON) to the Republic of Korea."

The allies emphasized the OPCON transition will be completed by December 2015.

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 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.

About 28,500 American troops in South Korea as a deterrent against the North.

The two sides also agreed to hold the senior-level military talk twice a year to assess and review the transition process on a more frequent basis. The next meeting will be held next April in Seoul, the JCS said. (Yonhap)