Allies Prepared for N. Korean Contingencies
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
The top American military officer in South Korea said Monday that the United States and South Korea were fully prepared to deal with any contingency situations resulting from internal turmoil in North Korea.
As for North Korea's missile threat, Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC), said the military has bolstered surveillance on the North's short- and long-range missiles and artillery batteries deployed near the inter-Korean border.
The combined forces of the United States and South Korea have state-of-the-art radar systems capable of detecting any missile-firing moves so that they can carry out precision strikes against artillery and missiles in the case of an emergency, Sharp said.
The commander made the remarks during a press conference organized by the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Seoul.
``We have plans that take a look at both an all-out attack from North Korea and instability in North Korea,'' Sharp was quoted by Yonhap News Agency as saying, adding instability means humanitarian disasters, a civil war or potential loss of control of it nuclear weapons.
``We hope we never have to execute those, but we're prepared for the full range of operations,'' said the four-star general, who concurrently serves as chief of the United Nations Command.
Since the inauguration of the Lee Myung-bak administration, which advocates a tougher policy toward the communist state, South Korea and the United States have reportedly discussed developing a conceptual contingency plan on North Korea into a full-fledged operational one to cope with various levels of internal instability in the North.
The CONPLAN 5029, drawn up in 1999 by the CFC, outlines joint military responses by USFK and South Korean troops to contingency situations, such as a mass inflow of North Korean refugees, a civil war provoked by revolt or coup, South Korean hostages being held in the North, natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods, and others.
Contingency situations also include measures to prevent Pyongyang's weapons of mass destruction from being smuggled out of the North if the regime is involved in a domestic crisis or suddenly collapses.
In 2005, the Roh Moo-hyun administration, which pursued a policy of greater independence from the United States, rejected a U.S. proposal to develop the plan to OPLAN 5029, involving more specific contingency scenarios. Roh's National Security Council said it had vetoed the proposal because the operational plan could infringe on South Korea's sovereignty and the USFK could conduct unilateral action against North Korea and cause a full-scale war on the peninsula.
During Monday's conference, Sharp reiterated North Korea should return to the six-party talks over its nuclear weapons program and allow international inspectors to verify the regime's nuclear declaration made in June last year.
He dismissed arguments from the North that South Korea and the United States should also have their nuclear programs verified.
``South Korea does not have nuclear weapons, and the demand is for North Korea to verify that they do not have nuclear weapons and to denuclearize,'' he said.
``I think the answer to that will come out when North Korea finally agrees to sit down and discuss how we're going to go through a verification regime,'' said Sharp. ``We, the United States, and the other countries of the six-party talks look forward to that day so that we can work these details out.''
The six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia are at a stalemate, as the North refuses a proposal to establish a protocol to verify its nuclear materials and activities.