By Jun Ji-hye
Rival lawmakers are at odds over whether ratification from the National Assembly is necessary to maintain some of the U.S. military bases in Seoul and north of Seoul as agreed by the defense chiefs of South Korea and the United States.
The main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) claims that the plan to keep some U.S. bases in their present locations requires ratification from the Assembly because it means a change to an existing plan to move them to Pyeongtaek in Gyeonggi Province.
The party argues that the change to the plan will hurt people living in the vicinity of those existing bases. Some also claim that this will cause financial hardships to the government.
Contrastingly, the ruling Saenuri Party and the Ministry of National Defense have said that discussions can resolve the disagreement.
The agreement on the location of the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) and the 210th Armored Brigade of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division (2ID) was the part of allies’ agreement to delay the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) of South Korean troops to Seoul from Washington.
Defense Minister Han Min-koo and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel agreed to keep the CFC and the armored brigade in their present locations ― the Yongsan Garrison and Dongducheon’s Camp Casey, respectively ― instead of moving them to Pyeongtaek, during their annual Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) in Washington last week.
The two allies had originally planned to move the Yongsan Garrison in central Seoul and the entire 2ID north of Seoul to Pyeongtaek by 2016.
Those plans were outlined in Yongsan Relocation Plan (YRP) and the Land Partnership Plan (LPP) that were ratified by the National Assembly in 2004 and 2002, respectively. The amended version of LPP was ratified again in 2004.
Once the U.S. bases were vacated, Seoul City planned to redevelop the vacated site of Yongsan Garrison into a park, while Dongducheon wanted to build housing facilities and a university in the current Camp Casey.
The latest decision by Han and Hagel meant a change to those plans.
Rep. Ahn Gyu-baek of the NPAD argued Monday: “Such a change should go through the ratification process of the National Assembly because all existing plans were created through the Assembly’s approval.”
However, the ministry argued that the changes can be implemented through mutual discussion between allies.
“The YRP and LPP stipulate that the two allies can adjust the plans through mutual discussion when a momentous change occurs,” said Kim Min-seok, the defense ministry’s spokesman, in a statement. “The government’s legal decision is that the current situation does not require the Assembly’s approval, as a ground rule of the two plans has not changed.”
Rep. Kim Sung-chan of the governing camp sided with the ministry, saying, “It is a just minor change in YRP because other bases of Yongsan Garrison will move to Pyeongtaek anyway.”
The joint communique issued after the SCM stipulates that the CFC will remain in Yongsan until Seoul regains wartime OPCON from Washington, and the armored brigade will stay at Dongducheon until the ROK forces’ counter-fire reinforcement plan is completed and certified.
The OPCON transition was initially scheduled for the end of 2015, but this was put on hold until the mid-2020s when Seoul is expected to complete production of its own Kill Chain preemptive strike and Korean Air and Missile Defense systems.
Controversy surrounding the locations of U.S. bases is expected to continue because local residents are already moving to stage a protest against the decision.
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