Rep. Chung says 'scrap command transfer'

By Chung Min-uck

Rep. Chung Mong-joon

Rep. Chung Mong-joon, former chairman of the ruling Saenuri Party, said Monday that Seoul should not take over wartime operational control (OPCON) of the nation’s military from the United States amid increasing threats from North Korea.

A transfer of OPCON is scheduled for 2015 under a bilateral agreement made between Seoul and Washington in 2010.

“The plan to transfer OPCON must be scrapped. At the same time, we must beef up our conventional weapons,” stated Chung in a news release. “North Korea is ratcheting up its threats to attack and we should be prepared.”

Chung said the North is likely to act on its recent aggressive rhetoric.

“The latest wordings from the North are either issued by its Army Supreme Command or Kim Jong-un himself,” Chung said. “What’s more important is that the North Korean regime has gained confidence through its successful launch of a rocket and a nuclear bomb test. We never know what its military leadership will do backed by a young leader who repeatedly adopts a hard-line stance.”

Following the United Nations Security Council’s approval of new sanctions after the North’s nuclear test on Feb. 12, Pyongyang has been issuing verbal threats, calling for all-out nuclear war with South Korea and the U.S.

It threatened to cancel the Armistice Agreement, which ended the 1950-53 Korean War, and wage war. The two Koreas are technically still at war because a peace treaty was never signed.

As a result, voices calling for a delay of the OPCON transition have been gaining support here.

A number of senior officials have hinted at the need to do this.

Sung Kim, the U.S. ambassador to Seoul, said last month that Washington would “not proceed with the handover” if the South is not fully prepared.

President Park Geun-hye’s defense minister nominee Kim Byung-kwan, last week said at a confirmation hearing for his post that Seoul could “reconsider the transfer” amid growing tension between the two Koreas.

Public sentiment has followed suit.

According to a survey conducted by The Asan Institute for Policy Studies (AIPS), a Seoul-based private think-tank, last month following Pyongyang’s Feb. 12 nuclear bomb test, 40.3 percent of respondents thought the transfer should be postponed, while 11.4 percent think the plan should be abandoned altogether.

Despite growing demands for a delay, Seoul and Washington have maintained that the OPCON handover will proceed as scheduled.