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South Korea and the United States reached a compromise agreement Friday to complete the transfer of wartime operational control of South Korean troops from the U.S. over a 30-month period from 2009 after failing to agree on a specific target year.

In a 14-point commmnunique, the two sides said they agreed on the flexible transition period between Oct. 15, 2009 and March 15, 2012. The statement was issued after hours of further negotiations after the end of the two countries' official defense talks.

"Both sides agreed to expeditiously complete the transition of OPCON to the ROK after October 15, 2009, but not later than March 15, 2012," the statement said. "Both sides agreed to begin immediately to develop a detailed joint implementation plan within the first half of 2007." ROK is short for the Republic of Korea, South Korea's official name.

In a press briefing, Kwon An-do, the assistant defense minister for policy, said that the weight is on the target year South Korea has been demanding, although the two sides could only agree on the transition period between their desired dates.

"Given various realistic conditions like South Korea's capability, the weight is on our proposed target year while we respect the U.S. position," Kwon told reporters. South Korean Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung met with his U.S.
counterpart Donald Rumsfeld for the two countries' annual Security Consultative Meeting (SCM), the 38th since 1968, amid heightened tension over North Korea's nuclear weapon test. They easily agreed on a road map for the transfer of wartime operational control, but failed to overcome differences over a target year, so they had no choice but to reach a compromise over the transfer period.

South Korea pushed to regain the wartime operational control around 2012 to buy time to build a more advanced military, but the U.S. insisted on handing it over by 2009, citing Seoul's improved defense capabilities.

Yoon attempted to use the defense talks to ease public fears about a possible nuclear attack from North Korea following the communist country's nuclear weapon test. The North's nuclear test was at the top of the agenda during the meeting.

During the talks, Yoon demanded that the statement should be more specific about U.S. nuclear assurances, but Rumsfeld said it would not go beyond the language it has used in previous years.

According to the communique, Rumsfeld "offered assurances of a firm U.S. commitment and immediate support to the ROK, including continuation of the extended deterrence offered by the U.S. nuclear umbrella, consistent with the Mutual Defense Treaty."

Despite the denial by U.S. officials, South Korean officials said the phrase "extended deterrence" can be interpreted as a detailed and concrete pledge by the U.S. to extend a nuclear umbrella for South Korea in case of an attack from North Korea.

"The joint communique is significant in that a concrete nuclear strategy term was added to the existing promise of a nuclear umbrella provision. It is meaningful that we confirmed the U.S. commitment to the nuclear defense of South Korea when we are faced with the North's nuclear test," Kown explained.

Extended deterrence, as applied by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, means that the U.S. can provide not only tactical nuclear weapons but also strategic nuclear weapons for South Korea in case of an attack from North Korea, some officials explained.

The U.S. has reiterated its promise of the nuclear umbrella at every annual meeting of the defense ministers since 1978, but Yoon asked Rumsfeld to specify on the U.S. commitment to the continued provision in the joint communique.

But the U.S. has been hesitant to make a list of nuclear weapons to be provided for the South in case of a war because it would invite stiff resistance from China, Russia, Japan and Taiwan, according to analysts.

In 1991, the U.S. withdrew hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons from South Korea following an inter-Korean agreement to denuclearize the peninsula amid global detente and arms reduction moves.

In a war scenario called OPLAN 5027, jointly drawn up in 2002, South Korea and the U.S. would seek to remove the regime of the North's leader, Kim Jong-il, and defeat his 1.17-million-member military in the event North Korea invades the South, but analysts say it lacks specific action plans to cope with a nuclear war.

Some observers raise the possibility that the war plan will likely be revised to specify what types of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons will be deployed on the Korean Peninsula in accordance with the level of North Korea's nuclear threat. Those obrservers say the types of weapon systems on offer would probably include Tomahawk missiles, AGM cruise missiles, BGM-109 guided missiles, stealth fighters and submarines.

Conscious of a worsening security environment following North Korea's nuclear weapon test, the two sides said they condemned in the strongest terms the North's clear threat to international peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia.

They also demanded North Korea "suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programs" but they agreed to seek a peaceful resolution to the issue.

South Korea voluntarily put the operational control of its military under the American-led U.N. Command (UNC) shortly after the three-year Korean War broke out in 1950.

In 1994, peacetime control was handed back to South Korea, but wartime control remains in the hands of the top U.S. commander in South Korea, who heads both the UNC and the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC).

Under a command restructuring plan, the CFC will be dismantled over the next few years and the two sides will run separate commands on the Korean Peninsula when South Korea takes over wartime control from the U.S. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff will take charge of the country's armed forces during times of peace and war.

In place of the CFC, South Korea and the U.S. will establish a joint body for military operations, a key step toward a joint defense system. The CFC was created in November 1978 and took over peacetime and wartime control rights from the American-led UNC.

In the envisaged joint defense system, South Korea's JCS will act as theater command on the Korean Peninsula and take the initiative in military operations, while the U.S. Forces Korea will shift to a supporting role.

The joint body will be designed to coordinate joint military operations and give orders on cooperation during times of peace and war, and it will be designed to be stronger than the U.S.-Japan alliance model, they added.

However, the U.S.-led UNC will be maintained on the Korean Peninsula despite the planned dismantlement of the CFC, according to the officials. Seoul and Washington are to create two separate commands before establishing a joint defense system.

North Korea frequently demands the dismantlement of the UNC, saying it poses a challenge to the unification of the two Koreas and that the U.S. formed the organization without proper authorization from the U.N. over five decades ago.

During the 1950-53 Korean War, the U.S. and 15 other countries fought alongside South Korea under the U.N. flag against the invading North.

The conflict ended with an armistice between the UNC, North Korea and its main ally China. South Korea is not a signatory to the treaty. The two Koreas are still technically in a state of war due to the absence of a peace treaty.

The Seoul-Washington alliance, forged in blood during the 1950-53 Korean War, has faced fundamental changes in recent years, as the South Korean military moves to reduce its dependence on American forces.

The U.S., for its part, has also begun transforming its fixed military bases in South Korea into more mobile, streamlined forces under its global troop-realignment plan.

About 30,000 U.S. troops are now stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the Korean War. The U.S. plans to cut the number of its troops there to 25,000 by 2008.


Washington, Oct. 20 (Yonhap News)