By Ankit Panda
The two allies held a high-level meeting to discuss the transfer of wartime operational control of South Korean forces.
On Monday, representatives from the United States and South Korea met in Seoul to discuss the conditions under which the wartime control of South Korean troops would be transferred from Washington to Seoul. According to Yonhap News, “ the meeting follows last month’s agreement between Seoul’s Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin and his U.S. counterpart, Chuck Hagel.” Monday’s meeting took place at the assistant secretary level. An anonymous South Korean defense ministry official described the meeting’s primary purpose as being “in-depth discussions to set the timing and conditions for the South’s regaining of the wartime operational control (OPCON).”
According to the road map agreed upon by Chuck Hagel and Kim Kwan-jin, the United States and South Korea will consult on the issue on a monthly basis until October 2014. On Monday, the South Korea delegation was led by Ryu Je-seung, chief of the Defense Ministry’s planning and coordination office, and David Helvey, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia of the United States, according to the Shanghai Daily.
Operational control is a major outstanding issue in the important U.S.-South Korea military alliance. In the wake of the Korean War, South Korea effectively granted operational control of its armed forces to the United States. In 1994, the two allies agreed that South Korea would control its troops during peacetime. In the event of a conflict with North Korea, the defense of the South Korean peninsula will be managed by U.S. commanders. Following two postponements since 2007, South Korea is currently scheduled to regain wartime control of its forces in December 2015. The current talks are intended to push that date back further.
Read the full story at The Diplomat