US Wants Seoul to Invest More in Defense
By Lee Tae-hoon
Staff Reporter
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates called on South Korea to increase investment in defense, Wednesday, to fit its role as a contributor to global security.
"We encourage the Republic of Korea's political leaders to make an investment in defense appropriate to Korea's emerging role as a contributor to global security and commensurate with the threat you face on the peninsula," Gates told a group of U.S. and South Korean soldiers in Yongsan Garrison, Seoul.
He said that the threat posed by North Korea has reached a higher level.
"The peril posed by the North Korean regime remains, and in many ways, has become even more lethal and destabilizing," Gates said.
Gates arrived here earlier in the day for an annual Seoul-Washington security meeting. He will co-chair the 41st ROK-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) tomorrow with South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young.
The chief U.S. defense official noted that the Stalinist regime continues to pursue nuclear arms and engage in nuclear proliferation.
He said the U.S. forces are focusing their attention on the North’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
"Its armed forces can still inflict enormous destruction south of the Demilitarized Zone," Gates said.
"Ironically, even as the capability of their ground forces continues to degrade, their missile development and nuclear programs are increasingly dangerous.”
He also called the communist state a serious proliferation threat, saying, “Everything they make, they seem to be willing to sell."
Gates affirmed the transfer of the wartime operational command of South Korean troops from Washington to Seoul will take place as planned in 2012, saying the plan is "the culmination of a series of shifts toward greater responsibility."
The command was relinquished to the United States at the onset of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty.
"Going forward, Korea's international military contributions should be seen as what they are ― something that is done to benefit your own security and vital interests," Gates said.
He will stay in Seoul through Friday, before heading to Slovakia for a NATO meeting of defense ministers, a defense official said. Prior to his arrival in Seoul, Gates visited Tokyo as part of his weeklong trip to Asia, which began Monday. He held talks with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa.
En route to Japan, Gates told reporters that he was "prepared to discuss a broad range of needs in Afghanistan" when he visits South Korea.
South Korea currently maintains scores of civilian medical staff at a U.S. base in Afghanistan and plans to increase the number to 85 by the year's end.