Allies seek to beef up deterrence against N. Korea

By Lee Tae-hoon

South Korea and the United States began their two-day talks on ways to improve deterrence against North Korean provocation and to formulate a joint response, the Ministry of National Defense said Thursday.

The allies focused on pending regional security issues, especially on the North’s nuclear programs and weapons of mass destruction (WMD), in the meeting, dubbed the Security Policy Initiative (SPI) forum, the ministry said in a statement.

"At this meeting, South Korea and the U.S. discussed ways to deter North Korean provocations and to cooperate with each other as allies in response to such provocations," the statement said. "Also on the agenda were the relocation of the U.S. forces in South Korea among other regional security issues and bolstering global security cooperation."

Lim Kwan-bin, deputy defense minister for policy, and his U.S. counterpart Michael Schiffer, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, headed their respective delegations at the 29th SPI talks.

The two countries have held the SPI meeting regularly since 2005, alternating between Seoul and Washington to discuss a wide range of security and military issues to better deal with North Korea’s military threats.

The ministry said that on the sidelines of the SPI meeting, the second meeting of the Extended Deterrence Policy Committee was also held with the aim of assessing the threats of WMDs.

The committee was launched in December last year, two months after the two allies, during their annual defense ministers' talks, agreed to form a body to make decisions about their nuclear policy and to step up their deterrence against the North’s threats.

During the SPI talks, the two sides also held their third meeting on the transfer of wartime operational control of South Korean troops from the United States to Seoul by December 2015.

The working groups of the plan, known as the Strategic Alliance 2015, are scheduled to review the implementation of tasks designed to ensure the smooth transfer of wartime control, according to the ministry.