hankyoreh

South Korean Defense Minister (right) during a meeting of the National Assembly’s Defense Committee on Mar. 18. (Yonhap News)

On Mar. 18, South Korean Minister of National Defense Jeong Kyeong-doo said it was “too soon” to refer to activity at North Korea’s missile launch site in Tongchang Village as being “missile-related.”

“There is a launch site at Tongchang Village, but we don’t believe the activity spotted there means the North is about to launch a missile.” Recently, work on rebuilding the missile launch site at Tongchang Village has been captured on satellite images, raising questions about North Korea’s intentions.

Jeong made these comments during a plenary session of the National Assembly’s National Defense Committee while remarking that South Korea “is aware of all of North Korea’s [nuclear] activities.” That’s taken to mean that South Korea and US intelligence agencies are both able to accurately determine when the North is about to carry out a nuclear test.

Jeong also responded to reports in the foreign press that North Korea has produced enough uranium and plutonium to manufacture about six nuclear devices since the first North Korea-US summit in June 2018. “South Korean and US intelligence officials are in close cooperation, and nothing definite has been identified in regard to that,” he said.

During his opening message, Jeong said, “We will continue to strengthen the ROK-US alliance, which is the foundation of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the establishment of peace there, and we will swiftly acquire the key capabilities needed for the OPCON transfer.” The term OPCON refers to South Korea recovering the wartime operational control of its troops from the US.

“We will strongly promote defense reform to build a strong military that can support peace on the Korean Peninsula. We will push to reorient the command structure for joint and cooperative operations under the leadership of the South Korean military based on our alliance with the US,” Jeong said.

Along with this, the Ministry of National Defense announced that South Korea and the US’ top military officials would be meeting in Washington, DC, early next month in order to assess the security situation on the Korean Peninsula following the second North Korea-US summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, and to discuss follow-up measures by the military. Matters that are likely to be discussed during this meeting include the adjustment of South Korea-US joint military exercises, the future of those exercises, a review of initial operational capability (IOC) for the OPCON transfer and the methods and procedures for carrying out the general environmental impact assessment needed for the deployment of the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defense system to be made official.

During the meeting on Monday, the Defense Ministry said that South and North Korea were planning to hold general-level or working-level meetings soon to discuss ways of implementing the inter-Korean Comprehensive Military Agreement reached on Sept. 19, 2018. The ministry added that on Mar. 6 it had given North Korea a list of names for the South Korean team that’s supposed to be part of a joint effort to recover the remains of fallen soldiers beginning next month.

By Yoo Kang-moon, senior staff writer

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]