17 October 2015

Editorial: Park Geun-hye's Visit to Washington: Major Takeaways

Image: Flickr User - Ash Carter
By Ankit Panda

South Korea and the United States reaffirmed their alliance and set out new areas for cooperation.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye met with U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday, marking her second official visit to the United States during her tenure as president. Park’s visit was originally scheduled for mid-June 2015 but was postponed due to South Korea’s public health crisis stemming from the the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus. Park arrived in the United States on Tuesday for a four-day visit with an extensive agenda covering bilateral defense, economic, and political cooperation with the United States, South Korea’s most important ally.

On Friday, following Park’s meetings with Obama, the two leaders released two joint statement: “The United States-Republic of Korea Alliance: Shared Values, New Frontiers,” a general statement on the state of the U.S.-South Korea alliance and its future, and “United States-Republic of Korea Joint Statement on North Korea,” a more specific statement on how the alliance will handle denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and North Korean provocations.

Park and Obama agreed to maintain and deepen the U.S.-South Korea alliance, reaffirming several important bilateral developments on that front over the past year. They affirmed last October’s agreement on the postponement of the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON), South Korea’s development of a preemptive Kill-Chain and Korean Air Missile Defense system, and the “common goal” of “complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea in a peaceful manner.” The joint statement also contains a detailed range of bilateral commitments on cybersecurity collaboration between the two countries.

Notably, the issue of a possible deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system to counter North Korean ballistic missiles did not make an appearance in the joint statement. China has been particularly sensitive to the possible deployment of THAAD systems on the Korean peninsula. In March, Chinese and South Korean diplomatic representatives exchanged sharp words over the issue.

Read the full story at The Diplomat