South Korea - The Korea Times

S. Korea, US start anti-sub exercise

By Jung Sung-ki South Korea and the United States engaged in a joint anti-submarine warfare (ASW) exercise Monday in the waters west of the Korean Peninsula, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and U.S. Forces Korea. This is the second in a series of security exercises designed to send a message of deterrence to North Korea, which has been blamed for torpedoing the Cheonan in March near the disputed in the western sea. North Korea has denied any involvement in the ship sinking that killed 46 South Korean sailors. The exercise will coincide with a special conference of North Korea’s Workers’ Party, during which dictator Kim Jong-il is expected to name his youngest son, Jong-un, as his successor. The conference is expected to open Tuesday. “The exercise started around 7 a.m., and everything is going well in accordance with our maneuver plans,” a JCS spokesman told reporters. The ASW exercise was originally scheduled for Sept. 5 to 9, but it was postponed due to an approaching typhoon at that time. During the five-day exercise, which will run through F

Sep 27, 2010

UN allies to mark recapture of Seoul

By Jung Sung-ki About 70 representatives from 16 nations that participated in the Korean War under the flag of the United Nations arrived in Seoul Saturday to attend a ceremony to commemorate the recapture of Seoul from North Korea by U.N. allied forces. The war broke out on June 25, 1950, and just three days later, Seoul was taken over by North Korean troops and the South Korean government was forced to flee south. Twenty-one U.N. nations sent troops to help South Korea fight against North Korea that was backed by China. On Sept. 28, 1950, South Korean and U.N. coalition troops recovered the capital of South Korea, following the historical Incheon Landing Operation led by U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur. The once-evacuated South Korean government was able to return to Seoul. The representatives will pay tribute Monday to the South Korean soldiers killed in the fratricidal war at the national cemetery in Seoul. On Tuesday, they will attend a ceremony in central Seoul to commemorate the recapture of the capital. The representatives will pay a courtesy call to

Sep 26, 2010

Seoul not to describe Pyongyang as main enemy

By Jung Sung-ki This year’s defense white paper will not describe North Korea as the “main enemy” despite the sinking of the frigate Cheonan in March, an official at the Ministry of National Defense said Monday. But the biennial defense report will depict the North as posing a grave threat to the security of the South, the official said. The white paper, which is due out in October, would mark a contrast to last year’s paper, in which North Korea was described as a “direct and serious threat.” A 1995 defense white paper had described the North as the main enemy for the first time after the communist state threatened to turn Seoul into a “sea of flames” in military talks. But the description was deleted in 2004 when former President Roh Moo-hyun was trying to engage the North. After the Cheonan was allegedly sunk by a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine, calls have grown here that the North should be categorized as the main enemy in the paper.

Sep 20, 2010

Panel proposes creating ready reserve corps

By Jung Sung-ki A presidential ad hoc panel on national defense affairs has proposed a plan to establish a 10,000-strong “Ready Reserve” Corps that could be called up in case of emergency, a military source said Monday. The idea is one of about 30 measures proposed by the committee to Cheong Wa Dae to help improve the nation’s defense posture, the source said. A separate defense committee affiliated with the Ministry of National Defense will review the proposals and make a final decision. South Korea maintains a mandatory conscription system under which all able-bodied men over 19 are required to serve in the military for about two years. As the military service period is being gradually shortened to some 18 months over the next few years under a 2007 revision, the military is worried about a potential manpower shortage. Against that backdrop, the panel earlier suggested that the reduction in the service period be reversed. It also recommended that the military maintain about 600,000 forces, putting a halt to a troop reduction under the Defense Reform Plan 202

Sep 20, 2010

Military suffering ammunition shortage

By Jung Sung-ki The South Korean Army is short on ammunition reserves to be used in wartime, an opposition lawmaker claimed Friday. According to Rep. Song Young-sun of the Future Hope Alliance, the service only has enough artillery ammunition to last for two weeks, should war break out. Song is a member of the National Assembly Defense Committee. The stockpile of high-cost ammunition, such as howitzer shells for K-9 self-propelled guns, is even lower, the lawmaker said. The Army is deploying K-9s mainly to islands near the West Sea border with North Korea to counter any long-range artillery attacks should hostilities break out. But the Army only has enough of the K-9 shells for three to four days, she said. The multiple-launch rocket systems’ ammunition and dual-purpose improved conventional ammunition are also in short supply. An Army spokesman said it was not so necessary to maintain a large amount of ammunition. “We assess artillery exchanges between the two Koreas would continue for about six days, should a conflict occur,” the spokesman said. “Give

Sep 17, 2010

North Korea proposes military talks with South

By Jung Sung-ki North Korea has proposed holding colonel-level military talks with the South next week, the Ministry of National Defense said Thursday. The proposal comes on the heels of Seoul announcing it will send 5,000 tons of rice and other aid to the flood-stricken North in a sign of easing tensions that had risen following the sinking of a South Korean warship in March. Representatives of the U.S.-led United Nations Command (UNC) Military Armistice Commission and the North Korean People’s Army Panmunjeom Mission held a working-level meeting earlier in the day at the truce village. Both sides discussed ways of easing tension on the peninsula, according to UNC officials. North Korea made the proposal for the working-level military meeting via a faxed message using a military hotline over the tense West Sea border, a ministry spokesman said. In the message, the North demanded that the two sides discuss the issue of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto inter-Korean sea border in the West Sea, and anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets being flown by South Kore

Sep 16, 2010

Navy to focus on littoral warfare

By Jung Sung-ki Moving away from a decade-long emphasis on open-sea operations, South Korea's Navy is redrawing its operational and procurement plans for coastal defense against a possible North Korean invasion. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Kim Sung-chan recently redirected the focus in an effort to bolster the Navy’s defense readiness against North Korean provocation, following the sinking of the ROK Navy ship Cheonan on March 26 in the West Sea, a Navy spokesman said Wednesday. A Seoul-led multinational team of investigators determined that the frigate was sunk by a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine. Pyongyang denies its involvement in the incident that claimed the lives of 46 sailors. “A consensus has been built among Navy leaders that it’s the time to put an emphasis on deterring North Korea’s maritime provocation than developing our blue-water capability,” the spokesman said. Against that backdrop, the Navy will draw up new tactics and strategies more focused on thwarting North Korean provocation. For instance, the Navy will operate “search and

Sep 15, 2010

Exclusive Seoul to reopen bidding on presidential jet

By Jung Sung-ki The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) plans to reopen bidding for the supply of an advanced presidential jet after its negotiations with the sole bidder, Boeing of the United States, has hit a snag, according to agency officials Wednesday. The American aircraft giant appeared to slam-dunk the $430 million “VC-X” contract, as the European aerospace consortium EADS dropped its bid last month for unknown reasons. The DAPA had aimed to sign a final contract in November after completing price negotiations and evaluating the performance of the Boeing 747-8. “We’re not able to start the VC-X program as scheduled due to the failure of negotiations with the bidder,” a DAPA spokesman said. “The VC-X bidding will be reopened as early as in November, hopefully inviting EADS again.” Some industry sources attributed the failure to DAPA’s “excessive demands” for the VC-X requirements. “The DAPA wants a brand-new airplane fitted with world’s most advanced equipment and devices. It would be impossible to satisfy those requirements,” a source said.

Sep 15, 2010

S. Korea should beef up maritime ISR capability

By Jung Sung-ki South Korea should speed up efforts to bolster its maritime defense posture against emerging irregular warfare tactics by beefing up its naval intelligence-gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) weapons systems, an American naval expert said Tuesday. William D. Sullivan, a former U.S. vice admiral who served as commander of the U.S. Naval Forces Korea, also called for multinational maritime cooperation to defend against the new concept of war at sea. “The concept of war at sea has evolved continuously throughout history, but perhaps the most dramatic strategic changes have occurred in the past two decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War,” Sullivan said in a naval security forum in Seoul. The two-day forum, titled “The Security Environment of the Korean Peninsula and Direction for Development of the ROK Navy,” ended Tuesday. The former U.S. navy commander said superpowers ― the United States and the Soviet Union ― designed, built and trained their navies to conduct sustained, high-intensity warfare on t

Sep 14, 2010

Seoul reaffirms N. Korea’s torpedo attack in final report

By Jung Sung-ki A multinational team of investigators failed to find traces of explopsives on the propeller of a torpedo collected from the site of the sinking of the Cheonan ship in March, according to a head of the team. This, critics say, leaves lingering questions about the exact cause of the incident that killed 46 sailors. The Joint Civil-Military Investigation Group (JIG), released its final report of the Cheonan investigation both in Korean and English Monday, following its interim report announced May 20. The group included experts from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden and Canada. The 300-page final report contains records of the incident, the raising of the wreckage, the collecting of evidence and simulations. “The ROK Navy ship Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean torpedo attack while conducting a normal mission in the vicinity of Baengnyeong Island at 09:22 p.m. on March 26, 2010,” the English-version of the report says in its conclusion. “The analysis on the cause of the sinking initially left open every possibility and explored

Sep 13, 2010

Defense