Defense Ministry cites N. Korean nuclear threat
By Kang Seung-woo
South Korea has asked the United States to "review" the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) scheduled for 2015 to factor in growing threats from North Korea, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said Wednesday.
"We have made the proposal due to nuclear threats from North Korea. We are discussing it with the U.S.," it said in a statement.
"We have suggested that both countries take all options into consideration ahead of the OPCON transfer," ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said.
The ministry responded to a report that the two allies were consulting with each other on the delay of the OPCON transfer, citing a U.S. official.
"I know that has been proposed by the South Korean government, and we are looking at that, working with the South Korean government," the official was quoted as saying.
However, the spokesman declined to confirm the report, saying only that South Korea and the U.S. will put the issue on the table in the Security Consultative Meeting, where Defense Ministry Kim Kwan-jin is scheduled to meet his U.S. counterpart Chuck Hagel in October in Seoul.
The transition from Washington to Seoul is scheduled for December 2015, but there are growing calls for a delay after Pyongyang began to continually ramp up tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
The transition was postponed in 2010 until the end of 2015 after a North Korean submarine sank the South Korean frigate Cheonan on March 26, 2010.
Along with the OPCON transfer, the decades-old ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command is supposed to separate U.S. and Korean command structures, alongside a new alternative body that will be headed by a Korean general.
Since its long-range rocket launch in December and nuclear test in February, both of which resulted in the expanded U.N. Security Council sanctions, the Kim Jong-un regime inflamed tensions, scrapping the armistice and placing its military in combat-ready status in March.
In addition, it threatened to strike the U.S. mainland, Hawaii and Guam, which pushed conservative groups including the Korea Veterans Association to raise their voice against the OPCON transfer.
They argue that a premature transition would send a wrong signal to North Korea as well as weaken the joint defense readiness of the allies despite the U.S. assurances that Washington's commitment to the defense of South Korea will stay unchanged after the OPCON transfer.
Seoul handed over both wartime and peacetime operational control of its armed forces to the U.S. in July 1950, a month after the North started the three-year-long Korean War. Seoul regained peacetime operational control in late 1994.
South Korea and the U.S. agreed in February 2007 that the transition would be carried out on April 17, 2012, before further delaying it after the Cheonan sinking.
In May, U.S. President Barack Obama said at a joint press conference, accompanied by President Park Geun-hye, "We are on track for South Korea to assume operational control for the alliance in 2015," and Park just said the two sides should prepare for the OPCON transfer in the direction of bolstering their joint defense posture.
By Kang Seung-woo
South Korea has asked the United States to "review" the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) scheduled for 2015 to factor in growing threats from North Korea, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said Wednesday.
"We have made the proposal due to nuclear threats from North Korea. We are discussing it with the U.S.," it said in a statement.
"We have suggested that both countries take all options into consideration ahead of the OPCON transfer," ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said.
The ministry responded to a report that the two allies were consulting with each other on the delay of the OPCON transfer, citing a U.S. official.
"I know that has been proposed by the South Korean government, and we are looking at that, working with the South Korean government," the official was quoted as saying.
However, the spokesman declined to confirm the report, saying only that South Korea and the U.S. will put the issue on the table in the Security Consultative Meeting, where Defense Ministry Kim Kwan-jin is scheduled to meet his U.S. counterpart Chuck Hagel in October in Seoul.
The transition from Washington to Seoul is scheduled for December 2015, but there are growing calls for a delay after Pyongyang began to continually ramp up tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
The transition was postponed in 2010 until the end of 2015 after a North Korean submarine sank the South Korean frigate Cheonan on March 26, 2010.
Along with the OPCON transfer, the decades-old ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command is supposed to separate U.S. and Korean command structures, alongside a new alternative body that will be headed by a Korean general.
Since its long-range rocket launch in December and nuclear test in February, both of which resulted in the expanded U.N. Security Council sanctions, the Kim Jong-un regime inflamed tensions, scrapping the armistice and placing its military in combat-ready status in March.
In addition, it threatened to strike the U.S. mainland, Hawaii and Guam, which pushed conservative groups including the Korea Veterans Association to raise their voice against the OPCON transfer.
They argue that a premature transition would send a wrong signal to North Korea as well as weaken the joint defense readiness of the allies despite the U.S. assurances that Washington's commitment to the defense of South Korea will stay unchanged after the OPCON transfer.
Seoul handed over both wartime and peacetime operational control of its armed forces to the U.S. in July 1950, a month after the North started the three-year-long Korean War. Seoul regained peacetime operational control in late 1994.
South Korea and the U.S. agreed in February 2007 that the transition would be carried out on April 17, 2012, before further delaying it after the Cheonan sinking.
In May, U.S. President Barack Obama said at a joint press conference, accompanied by President Park Geun-hye, "We are on track for South Korea to assume operational control for the alliance in 2015," and Park just said the two sides should prepare for the OPCON transfer in the direction of bolstering their joint defense posture.
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