hankyoreh

To facilitate cooperation on countermeasures for biological warfare, South Korea and the US signed information sharing agreement about biological weapons in 2013 as part of the US military’s JUPITR Program (Joint USFK Portal and Integrated Threat Recognition), which is designed to counter biological weapons attacks by North Korea.

But recent evidence suggests that the US did not inform South Korea that it had brought anthrax and other hazardous materials into the country for experiments, let alone provide advance notification of those activities. This is giving rise to suspicions that the US used the pretext of cooperation to unilaterally pursue a biological countermeasures program.

“South Korea’s Defense Ministry and the US Department of Defense signed an agreement to set up a joint portal for monitoring biological weapons, which is supposed to be set up by the end of this year,” an official with South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense said. The official explained that the biological surveillance portal was a joint project through which the two countries planned to monitor and respond to the use of 10 dangerous biological agents, including anthrax, botulinum, smallpox, bubonic plague, and tularemia.

Peter Emanuel, BioScience Division Chief for the US Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC), previously said that the agreement to set up this surveillance portal was pursued as part of the JUPITR Program, which the US military developed to counter North Korean attempts to engage in biological warfare.

But even after signing an agreement to share information about biological weapons, the US apparently did not provide South Korea with any information about experiments analyzing samples of toxins used as biological weapons, including anthrax and botulinum, even though these experiments were part of the JUPITR Program.

“The US is currently unable to share information with us because the portal has not been completed,” a Ministry of National Defense official said, while admitting that there will probably be a limit to what information is shared even after the portal is complete. This implies that, even if the portal had been completed, it is unlikely that the US would have shared sensitive information about bringing anthrax into South Korea and conducting experiments or drills.

The US military remains tight-lipped about a Hankyoreh report stating that US forces were planning to test not only anthrax but also botulinum as part of the JUPITR Program.

The US military explained that the anthrax investigation is ongoing and that it would not be able to comment until the investigation is over.

“The US first proposed that South Korea share information about its biological weapons and diseases and then failed to inform South Korea about its own plans to conduct experiments on pathogens and poisons that are part of the same program. The US doesn’t seem to be treating South Korea as a genuine partner,” said the Peace and Disarmament Center with People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy.

By Kim Ji-hoon, staff reporter and Park Byong-su, senior staff writer

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