By Jun Ji-hye
South Korea and the United States are conducting talks on moving the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) headquarters, currently located in the U.S. Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, inside a site at the Ministry of National Defense, the ministry said Thursday.
The measure is to enhance allies’ joint defense posture during the course of the wartime operational control (OPCON) handover from Washington to Seoul, the ministry said.
“The moving would also contribute to smoothly carrying out a plan to develop the vacated site of Yongsan Garrison into a park,” the ministry added.
South Korea and the U.S. originally agreed to leave the CFC headquarters inside the Yongsan Garrison, just across from the defense ministry, despite the allies’ joint project to relocate the garrison in central Seoul and 2nd Infantry Division north of Seoul to Camp Humphreys, Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.
The agreement was made as the OPCON transfer, originally scheduled for December 2015, was postponed until the 2020s under the Park Geun-hye government.
But the agreement has provoked complaints from local residents who claimed that if the CFC headquarters remain at the present location, it will disturb a project to create a park there.